Monkspider's Top 25 Countdown: #25 Super Mario Kart (SNES)

Alright folks, time to kick off the actual countdown proper, and coming in at number 25 is that perennial classic Super Mario Kart. Though many have challenged the throne (Crash Team Racing, every other Mario Kart since then, Star Wars Super Bombad Racing et al) none of them have eclipsed this 16-bit masterpiece. To this day it remains the greatest example of the kart racing genre, and is personally my favorite racing game, period.

One of the things that really put Super Mario Kart over the top for me was it's characters. It seems like these days Nintendo shoe-horns in a lot of awful characters like Daisy and the awful Rare-designed version of Donkey Kong. Super Mario Kart wasn't about this kind of pandering to the lowest common denominator, it was all about the art, baby. It had great characters like Donkey Kong Junior and Koopa Troopa. The two greatest characters to ever star in a Mario Kart game and paradoxically the two that Nintendo dropped from the roster when they created Mario Kart 64.


But Donkey Kong Jr. was just so badass. He was one of the two "heavy" characters so he was slow to accelerate, but he had the highest top speed potential and could use his massive girth to knock pipsqueeks like toad off of the track. Koopa Troopa was a "light" character so he enjoyed quicker acceleration and superior turning capabilities. He was a lot of fun to play since it was so easy to be effective with him and also arguably the most loveable character. DK Jr was more of a thinking man's character.


But the game was really so much fun to play. The courses were all highly varied and well-designed interpretations of various Mushroom Kingdom locales. My favorite tracks were the Boo Houses and the legendary Rainbow Road. Anyone who played that the first time back in the day (which is the last course in the top secret Special Cup) was immediately blown away by it's psychedelic imagery and it's extreme level of challenge.

I have a lot of great memories on this one. The game was really one of the few early games to have a "coop-esque" mode where both of you can race in the same cup against each other and AI opponents. Jason (a highly skilled Yoshi expert as I recall) and I spent many hours playing through the various cups. I remember we always found the Peach to be particularly annoying so we nicknamed her Princess Brandi, after a particularly annoying and snotty girl who went to our middle school.

Of course no article about Super Mario Kart could be complete without mentioning it's battle mode, the game's true multi-player highlight. The game featured a number of rather simple maps where these peaceful characters, once separated from the peaceful world of racing, quickly devolved into violent barbarism. These kart drivers would actually try to inflict mortal injury on their opponent using a variety of weapons including but not limited to koopa shells, feathers, and banana peels. Needless to say, it was some hardcore shit.


Rob and I created a game where we would set up bases and basically agree to not attack each other until the other infringed on the sovereignty of our base somehow, whether by crossing into our territory or by some other perceived slight. Territorial laws aside, that didn't stop us from shooting off massive amounts of shells while we were in our base. Of course we would always try to offer "friendly" warnings to each other about "shell levels being unusually high" and stuff like that. We would also declare voyages of exploration in this mode where we would try to use the feather (which allowed your kart to jump) to glitch our way into unintended areas. Of course we would sometimes take this opportunity to plant a koopa shell in the back of the explorer while he was off on his great expedition. It was an interesting attempt to forge civilization out of the untamed jungle that is battle mode and to this day it is one of my most memorable multi-player experiences.

Super Mario Kart is one of my twenty five favorite games of all time, and I think is an excellent game to kick off this list. Oh, and more thing, anyone who grew up in this time period I guarantee will remember this commercial.