For a game to be good, it does not need to have immense graphics, nor does it need ingenious concepts. It doesn’t even need to be ingenuitive, it simply has to be playable.

What is meant by this is that a game needs to be able to be played over and over again without losing its appeal or enjoyment over time. Think of Tetris. Is there a simpler game than placing shapes into spaces? Perhaps not. Did its creation require a huge budget, complex ideas and ultra 4K HD graphics? No, and yet it can be played continuously. It’s obviously not one of the best games ever made, but considering its humble beginnings and limitations given its basic concept, it is hugely successful. Often, the simplest ideas are the best.

That is what Mario Kart was in its conception – a simple idea. Or at least, it seems simple now. Appeal to the younger audience with cartoon characters, each equipped with full back stories. Implement those characters into a scenario that can offer playability, such as competitive racing. Add a few extras and there you have what turned out to be a very successful sub-franchise – with the new gen games selling over 100 million copies combined.

Super Mario Kart was initially released in 1992, around seven years after the original Mario game came out; Mario Bros. With the Mario Bros. games being an instant hit, more versions were released. The third edition –  Super Mario Bros 3 – was one of them and many still consider it to be one of the best games of all time.

This is justified by the playability that it still has today despite gaming advancing 30 years. Graphics have been upgraded, new game modes have been added and some slight improvements have been made. In essence though, the fundamentals of the original Mario Bros are still present in the recent remakes and the gameplay is very similar. That is also the case with Mario Kart, in that the fundamentals of the original game are very similar to that of the remakes.

Mario Kart was especially successful on the Nintendo Wii. Why? Because it was ahead of its time. Nintendo were not afraid to experiment, and one gamble that paid off for them was the introduction of the online multiplayer game mode. They intended to install this on the DS version of the game (Mario Kart DS), but time constraints stopped this and ensured its successor debuted the new feature.

It was Call of Duty 4 that made the first real breakthrough in terms of multiplayer games really blowing up into the mainstream. One year after its release, in 2008, Mario Kart came out on Wii. Despite being, admittedly, an inferior console to the Xbox360 and PS3 at the time, Mario Kart Wii was a real success.

Many of the Nintendo console’s games were novelty and heavily relied on the (Wii) USP of interactivity – part of the reason that the Wii in general did as well as it did. Games such as Wii Sports initially were popular, but as the excitement of having to swing, swipe and shoot a controller around – as opposed to simply pressing buttons – wore off, the playability of the games alone was not enough to keep players playing them.

Mario Kart was an exception to that. Its single-player game mode alone offered the longevity to keep the fun coming for hours at a time. Add the multiplayer mode to the mix, and the game was truly packed full of variety, but still remained simple, fundamentally sticking to its roots as a light-hearted racing game involving an Italian plumber with a great mustache.

There was also the factor of the wireless wheel that acted as the controller. Older racing games introduced the idea of physically using a steering wheel to virtually race, but Mario Kart on the Wii vastly evolved this with the release of its dynamic, light and wireless wheel. This only added to the excitement of playing the game, with Nintendo doing a great job at incorporating the Wii’s USP with an already successful idea to make Mario Kart even more brilliant.

Photo by Evan-Amos / Public Domain (CC0)
Caption: The Wii Wheel

The game capitalized on the surge in popularity of online gaming before it was a common feature of most games. With strong servers supporting the game mode, fast-paced action and an ability to play with gamers literally all over the world, Mario Kart Wii was truly revolutionary. It brought an absolute classic into the modern era and became even more popular than the original, setting the bar for other games of that genre.

Feature image credit – Photo by DocChewbacca /CC BY-SA 2.0

Carl Williams

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