The mind plays tricks once more. Waking up to a box twice the size of a three-year-old on Christmas Day, unwrapping the paper and seeing the flashy box with Mario and pals on the front of a GameCube box is one of the earliest moments of sentient memory. It was not a box twice as tall. A trip into the attic to find the GameCube and the ambitious launch title Mario Kart: Double Dash proves it. A dark horse kart racer for a third-place gaming console in a generation dominated by Halo and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. Two-player experiences offered an alternative with the flagship Nintendo brand. It would never work today. Teamwork is no longer the valued piece in the average game, and Mario Kart: Double Dash depends on it.
Settling into the couch with a pal to play around with the magic array of wild karts and combinations was lost on future instalments. What sets Mario Kart: Double Dash apart is the mechanics of weight classes and the impact it makes on items and speed. It was the earliest iteration of a concept which devolved into microtransaction-like additions where the process of unlocking wheels and gliders became a slog, and not a fast-paced experience with short, sweet and exciting rewards. There is no greater feeling for the undeveloped mind than unlocking those hidden characters, the well of unlockable items shallow but surprising as King Boo and Toad appear on the roster. Replay value is key then, and once the new karts and favoured characters are in place, the co-op experience opens a whole new door.
The immediate change is the one mechanic never replicated in the Mario Kart series afterwards. Pairing two players together in the same kart, on paper, sounds sensible. One person drives and another keeps a hold of items, throwing out shells and bananas as and when they pick them up. But the fundamental concept of Mario Kart, winning the race, undermines the two-player experience and instead creates an unmovable problem. Being first is the aim but it makes the second player redundant. All there is to do in the winning spot is lay down a few chance traps and produce a taunt by pressing Z, or whatever your Dolphin Emulator controls are mapped to for honking the horn. An honest idea on paper but in practice it removes the competitive nature of co-op gaming in the hopes of building a collaborative experience.
It does it, though. Regardless of its lack of extras when participants find themselves in the same car, there is an element of shared responsibility. Communication becomes crucial for the couch-based duo as they career around the impressive and nostalgic variety of tracks. But coordination between people has never been the theme Mario Kart offered. It has always been pitting player against player and it should be no surprise that, while interesting, the partnership is short-lived. There are always the head-to-head options and battle arena, fun enough with four players against one another, unplayable when pairing them together, but at least the option was there.
But where there is change there is imitation. Crash: Tag Team Racing tried its hand at manipulating the solo kart racer into a tag-team experience, attempting to offer the best of both worlds in a system which was easily cheated. Pairing with someone at the start of a race, wiping out the competition and disengaging once the finish line was in sight delighted the younger mind but on its return the platforming clunkiness and relative similarities from track to track, how empty they feel with a camera zoomed out from the car, creates a lifeless disinterest Mario Kart has managed to avoid time and again. One person driving and another person watching the scenery. Even if it were down to extra moments of navigation, making use of the co-op partner clutching the back of the kart is a trick which the game failed to pull off – yet proved useful in solo play.
Players can of course switch from driving to backseat banana planter but co-ordinating the button press necessary for the person in control of the car to hop into the backseat was an easy way to spark an argument. Nobody wants to be less involved and for Mario Kart, the smooth driving and enjoyable freedom which comes from its drifting mechanics and ironed-out vehicle weight were only available to those behind the wheel. For passengers, they were there to lob the shells and not much else. Independent playing, those glorious days when everyone has headed to bed and you can launch up Mario Kart: Double Dash in peace, is where the game finds life. A novel change but change regardless.
Having two members of the team in solo play is a refreshing break and offers a neat combo of special items for those struggling in the middle of the table. Fifth place can douse the opposition in fireballs should they choose one of the Mario Bros. and later make use of the absurd giant banana reserved for Donkey and Diddy Kong. Each character hosting a variety of weight and item specifications – which impact the choice of vehicle – brings about a fresh and neat mix-up to be used from race to race. It is no doubt doomed when the correct strategy is stumbled on, the mixture of Toad and Paratrooper is never beaten for their speed, handling and item combo. But even then, the ability to mix these items and characters is all part of the charm.
It is a feature with room for development and Twitch streamer Hiram believes the two-player kart-racing could be a wildly different experience gamers are wanting in future installments. “I can see it working on a future Mario Kart game, especially now with online play. I don’t believe the Kart sharing is as good as reviews or people claim. It is a fun mechanic and a baseline for what could come in the future.” But was the mechanic a game-changing experience, or just a flash-in-the-pan switch which never returned and became a dark horse because of the platform it was hosted on?
“I don’t believe the two-player mechanic is game-changing enough,” Hasan said. “It is used primarily to switch between items, and it also makes it more difficult to pocket a second item due to having to switch characters. It is not a difficult mechanic to get used to as it’s only a click of a button. People keep coming back to this game for the love of the extended roster compared to Mario Kart 64.”
Cooperative experiences were nothing new and remain a staple for most games. It is likely now, more than ever, that co-op is the leading genre. Competitive or casual, there is routine to it which has evolved from the couch-based thrills of camaraderie moved from in-person to internet. It still exists in the form of No Way Out and It Takes Two though it is the narrative form which has taken precedence over the dive-in and drive essentials of the early 2000s in Mario Kart: Double Dash. Maybe it is just reminiscence and nostalgia clawing for some kart-racing experiences which do not have an hour of convincing your pals Garfield Kart is a fun few hours, but the simplicity, speed and ambition found in Mario Kart: Double Dash was a shot of life in what would be the start of a golden period of Mario Kart instalments.
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