Mario Kart 64

Hello there people of Vizzed! This is my first “Vizzed” review. Not my first review, but my first “Vizzed” review. So, anyways, I chose to do Mario Kart 64 for my first V review because it was a game that was recommended to me in the Vizzed Retro Game Room. To be honest, I hadn’t tried Mario Kart 64 until a couple of days ago, so it was a fresh game, which is ideal for reviews. I will be rating this game out of 10 in 6 catagories: Story, Graphics, Sound, Gameplay, Difficulty Curve, and Replayability. Alright, with that out of the way, let’s get started!

Story: n/a

There really is no story. You just kinda…race. Not much else.

Graphics: 7/10

Nothing really “spectacular” about the graphics. People may argue to me about how “Ahmigad it’s 3D how can you say that?!” Well guess what? It’s not really 3D. Several *visable * shortcuts have been made in the graphics, and, to that effect, several characters look flat in several places. That said, the graphics aren’t bad; the courses are beautifully rendered.

Sound : 9/10

To be honest, this is probably the games strongest asset. All of the characters have their own catch phrases when something happens (when you select them, when they get hurt, etc.), and there is a volley of different soundtracks. The course soundtracks are the best; each of them reflect the courses setting and difficulty

Gameplay: 7/10

The gameplay is actually pretty good in this game. You have 4 “cups” for the championships, each hosting 4 tracks. You have 3 difficulty levels, 50cc (Easy) 100cc (Medium) and 150cc (Hard). You must place at least 4th in each race; failure to do so will result in a lost life. Each track has three laps, which can be a blessing (such as if you are a closer) or a curse (if you wrecklessly charge through the tracks). If you beat the game, you will unlock “Mirror Mode”, which is basically just all the tracks backwards. In multiplayer, there are “Battle Tracks”, which are like race tracks, except the goal is to beat the other opponent by strategy and lethalness rather then speed and shortcuts.

Difficulty Curve: 6/10

The games weakness. I’ll keep it short and sweet: some characters are obviously better then others. If you choose someone other then DK, Peach, Mario, or Luigi, don’t expect to do well ANYWHERE.

Replayability: 9/10

Another strength. With all of the tracks, characters, and difficulty levels, you can easily drain hours on this game. If you have a spare controller or two and a couple of friends, the time spent on this piece of plastic easily doubles. Not only that, but when you think you’re done with the game, it expands. Suddenly, there are new “Mirror Tracks” to try and master. Finally, when that’s said and done with, you can try and beat your best time in “Ghost Mode”.

Overall: 7.6/10 (Good)

This is a game that I would recommend getting or playing in the Retro Game Room. It’s pretty good; there’s a reason it sold over a million copies.


BTW, you can find all of my reviews (this one!) on epicdomain.weebly.com It's still a diamond in the rough, but it'll (eventually) come through.

EDIT: Copy and paste the URL into your browser.

Good review. I like the game a lot more than you do obviously but thats only because I grew up with it. Toad is a good character I won with him every time!

marioisawesome : Hey, thanks

I was afraid no one but Billy was going to respond.

the_casualty : I just had a tournament with this game and won 100 bucks. I was so happy me and my friends wanted to have a tourney and that game was just sitting around it was just a lot of fun.

I like the review. Seeing as how I grew up with the game, I would say my ratings would match yours.

Nice review. I love MK64 so I disagreed with some things but most I agreed with.

Hey man, that was a good review. Now I didn't grow up with this game (), but I still thought it was great.

Psst, I grew up with Diddy Kong Racing :3

Nice review! You were probably a little nicer than I would have been. I didn't grow up with the game so maybe that's why I compare it to my first Mario Kart game (well, the first one that I owned), Mario Kart 64 DS. Now THAT is a game. I have spent so much time playing that game...and I still don't drift lol.

Pretty good review cassy, I personally like the game, but you make a pretty descriptive review yourself. Good job

pacman1755 : Hey, thanks for your response. This thread is sooooo old, it was back when I still ran EpicDomain, heheh.

i probably would have rated it 7/10 i really like this game good review

Mario Kart 64 was THE game back in the day . For some reason, Toad was the fastest character in the game (at least it seemed so to me) . Ha . My little brother always chose Yoshi . I liked how you could slip on the banana peels and not skid out though . Awesome game full of memories . !

Yeah I always seemed to pick Toad back in the day because he was the fastest... My friends and I would essentially race to pick Toad when the character select screen opened. Usually the second person taken after Toad was Peach, then Yoshi. I really loved this game back in the day, I would have to say it was one of my three favorite Nintendo 64 games. It was my favorite racer, I don't think any other racing game came close to it on the N64.

I agree that this was a great review. Thorough and you looked at it objectively. I personally never played it ON the N64. I downloaded it on the Wii market, and I think there wasn't any tweaking. I think the only thing I disagreed with was the difficulty curve section. You can do well with each character when you find their strength and play on those strengths. I love playing, although I have one quarrel with it. Unlike the original SNES version, you cannot get so good that you can win by a mile. At the same time, you can't lose by a mile unless you really try to do so. The reason for this is because the speed of the AI racers is completely based off of what place you are in. If you are behind, it is ridiculously easy to start zipping through the competition. But once you are competing for the 2nd and 1st place spots during the race, all of a sudden, the people in last place are going twice as fast as before and can pass you like a mongoose outrunning a snail. I get that the reason for this was to make it to where the game will be a challenge no matter how good you get. At the same time, it makes it to where if you screw up, you still have a chance at catching up. I respect the decision to make it that way, however, it kind of makes it to where you never get that feeling of complete mastery over the game. I always loved that feeling. But again, that is just how I feel. Maybe it's just because I never actually mastered it so I can't win by a mile

The best Mario Kart player is Mario,because Mario is all-around driver,its good...

Mario Kart 64 was very fun in the past. It is best in playing with friends on racing mode and battle mode. I still have it and I still play it some of the time.

Yeah, your review was pretty much spot-on. Compared to games nowadays, the graphics aren't amazing, but for back then they were addicting.

I agree. In my personal opinion, the game is great, and it's in my favorites. (Mainly because I grew up with it...)

After going through the game again, I definately enjoyed it...good game