As technology advances gamers demand much more from their games. Gone are the times when you could publish a side scrolling platformer and be guaranteed a million seller. 3D platformers are the present and more than likely the future as well. As for racing games, well you can improve the graphics, real time physics etc but there is only so far you can go with them due to the limits of current technology. Genre’s other than the platformer or racing game have it much easier, MMORPG have the social interaction aspect mixed with storyline, an RPG or FPS can rely on the storyline as well so what do you do when you have taken your genre as far as you can, what do you do to make your game stand out and challenge the gamers with something new?
In the case of Sega and Nintendo the answer has been to make single player games with multiple characters in simultaneous control of the player. Does it work? Thats what I intend to find out !

(Available exclusively for Nintendo Gamecube)

Mario Kart: Double Dash (MKDD) is the latest in the Mario Kart franchise from Nintendo. The previous 2 incarnations were Super Mario Kart on the SNES (or Super Famicom for those American readers amongst us) and Mario Kart 64 on the N64. The original Mario Kart was one of Nintendo’s shining moments, along with multiplayer games such as Super Bomberman it provided one of the most entertaining multiplayer experiences of its time, it was also quite entertaining in single player however the lasting enjoyment was multiplayer. Mario Kart 64 was more an update of the graphics engine and some new tracks than a game which pushed the envelope. Again more of a multiplayer classic than single player. With the release of the Gamecube most fans would expect new twists on the famous Nintendo franchises, we had 2 of them reasonably early on with Super Mario Sunshine and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Now we have MKDD. I first got a glimpse of what Nintendo had in store for MKDD when I watched a presentation by Shiguero Myamoto at the Edinburgh International Games Festival. At the time it was clear that the new co-op mode was going to really change the way we played Mario Kart.

Gameplay Modes
There are 4 modes of play in MKDD and if you’ve played previous versions they should be pretty familiar:

Grand Prix: There are 3 levels of difficulty in the game, 50cc. 100cc and 150cc. Within each difficulty level there are 4 cups each with 4 tracks. Selecting a cup allows you to race against 7 other teams with points being awarded for your finishing position. The team with the highest number of points at the end of the cup wins. Depending on how well you do you can also unlock new vehicles in this mode.
(NOTE: To begin with there are only 3 cups in each level – Mushroom, Flower and Star. Winning each cup unlocks the 4th “special” cup.)
Time Trial: Race through each course to get the fastest time possible.
VS.: Single races against other human players.
Battle: Fight against your friends in a battle to blow them up or

For the purpose of this article we shall concentrate on the Grand Prix mode.

So what’s it like?
From a racing perspective all the tracks in MKDD are refreshingly unique, at no time when racing do you feel within a certain track you are treading the same ground. Races vary from track racing to beach levels and ice levels. Some of the more interesting levels come in the special cup. The Rainbow Road level is especially challenging.

The graphics in MKDD have a very polished feel, there are no strange glitches anywhere, if you’ve played Mario Sunshine you’ll recognise the graphic style. There is also a good amount of character animation and quirks which add to the feeling that each team or character is just that little bit different. As well as feeling polished the draw distance and background are very detailed. Tracks like Donkey Kong Mountain show of how well the Gamecube’s hardware can be used. It’s important at this point to remember that realism isn’t high on the agenda for MKDD, there is no need to have photo-realistic effects or real time physics like Project Gotham Racing. Mario Kart is fun and that’s the whole point of the game. The fact that the game doesn’t have to worry about such features also means that the framerate is rock solid, even when playing 3 or four player games I wasn’t aware of any major slowdown, certainly none that affected my enjoyment of the game.

The whole idea behind the new two character mode is that one player on your kart controls the driving and the 2nd player controls the weapons. This mode really adds an extra dimension to the game. These characters can be switched at any point by hitting the z button on your controller and essentially add a second weapon slot to each kart. How you play is also decided by what characters you choose, there are light medium and heavy characters. 2 light characters can use a light kart which has low top speed but good acceleration, a mix of light and medium characters can use medium karts which have good acceleration and top speed and a mix of light medium and heavy characters can use heavy karts which have low acceleration but high top speed. This combination aspect adds a little more tactics to your play. Whilst I found that a medium kart and 2 medium characters were generally the best combination there was the occasional cup that I just had to change to a heavy kart in order to win.

The final aspect using 2 characters brings is the choice of special abilities you can use. Each character has their special weapon. Smaller characters generally have better special weapons. Baby Mario and Luigi have the excellent chain chomp which attaches to the front of their kart, increases the karts speed and knocks other players off the track if they come into contact. Mario and Luigi have fireballs which can be launched at other players knocking them off course. Power slides have been improved in MKDD and are now very useful, whilst power sliding round a corner (power slides are activated by using the shoulder buttons when cornering) if you waggle the control stick during the slide you can perform a mini turbo at the end of the slide, a short boost that can give you that little advantage over a player who isn’t using this technique.

In grand Prix mode one of your options is to play co-op, this means that a second human player can control character 2 in your kart. As well as making life a little easier because one person can concentrate on driving whilst the other concentrates on weapons and attacks. These, as with single player can be changed by hitting Z. Co-op mode also makes certain moves more easy as the 2nd player can perform the mini-turbo’s or assist in performing a double dash. (At the start of each race you can get a boost by hitting accelerate when the lights go green. If both players manage to hit accelerate at the same time in co-op mode Double Dash activates and your kart gets a longer speed boost). Double Dash can come in very useful in order to get yourself away from the chaotic battles that occur at the beginning of every race. Whether you play in single or co-op mode the controls are spot on, both responsive and easy to use. Even Mario Kart newbie’s will have no trouble in picking up the game and have most skills learned in minutes rather than hours.

The AI from the Gamecube controlled characters in MKDD is not remarkable or revolutionary however they are competitive with you and challenging to beat. Completing the game on all difficulty levels by coming first place in every race and unlocking the special cup is not easy. Which is good and adds some longevity to the game.

The final interesting feature of MKDD is LAN play. LAN play allows up to 8 players to play and race against each other using 2 Gamecube’s (connected with the broadband adapter). Some great fun to be had if you get your mates round and use this mode!

 

(Available for PS2, X-Box and Nintendo Gamecube. Version reviewed: Gamecube)

I wasn’t really a fan of the side scrolling sonic games, whilst I didn’t hate them I just didn’t get much enjoyment out of them. The first 3D Sonic game I played changed my opinion of the Sonic franchise. Sonic Adventure 2: Battle on the Dreamcast and Gamecube was one of the best 3D platform games I have ever played. Whilst Mario 64 was the game that heralded the dawn of 3D platformers (and has still to be bettered in my opinion) Sonic Adventure 2: Battle really stretched what could be done in a 3D environment. Some of the latter levels were truly fiendish and really messed with your head. It was a highly enjoyable game, if not without its faults…some dodgy camera angles for example.
This latest 3D outing for Sonic takes the basic gameplay from SA2 and tries to improve on it.

Gameplay Modes:
Story Mode: Choose a team from Team Sonic, Team Dark, Team Rose and Team Chaotix then battle through 16 main and several special stages to complete the storyline which is basically defeat Eggman / save the world. Each team has its own unique storyline.
Challenge Mode: Challenge mode allows you to replay each level you have completed in story mode, this allows you to improve your rating for each level and also features a second objective to complete.
2 Player: A selection of battle/race modes to compete against your friends.

For the purpose of this article we shall concentrate on the story mode.

So what’s it like?
The first thing that strikes you about Sonic Hero’s is that it’s fast, in some cases very very fast. Whilst the other 3D Sonic games were fast Sonic Heroes is a lot closer to the older Sonic games in its speed. There are some stages where you’ll be astounded with how fast things are happening. This would be a bad thing if it wasn’t for the new twist on the game - Team play which splits up the speed.

As mentioned above the Story mode revolves around 4 teams. Each team consists of 3 characters which are all simultaneously controlled by you. For each team the 3 characters have unique skills. One speed, one power and one flying. As you progress through each level you are presented with screens that suggest which character you should have as team leader. Whilst you generally don’t have to follow the onscreen suggestion it does provide some useful hints on how to get past each section. The choice of Team also affects the difficulty of the game, Team Sonic give you medium difficulty where as Team Rose is much easier (infact the manual suggests Team Rose for younger players). To give you an idea of how things work we shall concentrate on Team Sonic. Team Sonic consists of Sonic (speed), Knuckles (power) and Tails (flying). In the Gamecube version of Sonic Heroes the team leader can be changed by pressing the X or Y button. With Sonic selected you can zoom through each section with moves such as rocket acceleration and have reasonably good attacks such as flying kick and homing attack. There are also useful moves such as Tornado attack, which can be used to attack enemies or spin and ascend poles and light dash which can be used to dash through air using lines of rings. This is when the game is at its most speedy.

Changing to knuckles you have much more destructive power. Knuckles can destroy boxes, floors or walls as well as launching the other two characters at enemies or punching the ground to create explosions which damage nearby enemies.

Tails can be used to lift the other two characters across platforms or up to higher levels. Tails is also very handy in attack mode to kill airborne enemies. By adopting this method Sega/Sonic Team have opened up many new possibilities in level design. Your no longer forced to stick to one type of level for each stage as in previous games.

The basic Sonic elements are still present, collecting rings still gives you extra lives and the ability to be hit without dying. There is also the new level up feature, some enemies drop power ups when they are killed. When a character picks up a power up the strength of the characters abilities. Finally from the main game you can unlock special stages. These are opened by completing a level whilst still holding a key which is hidden somewhere in the level. The special stages consist of a race through a tube attempting to catch up with chaos emeralds.

The graphics in Sonic Heroes range from pretty stunning and detailed to very cluttered verging on confusing. Two of the better levels for example are the Rail Canyon level and the opening level Seaside Hill. They have a lot happening and have excellent draw distance and detail. Casino park however is a good idea gone awry due to an overly complicated design and poor use of colours. It’s sometimes really hard to view what’s happening onscreen. Whilst this can be annoying it is still enjoyable and playable. The camera issues that were evident in Sonic Adventure 2:Battle have been ironed out in Sonic Heroes and the camera maintains the most intelligent angle at every point in the level. It’s also possible to rotate the camera if need be by using the shoulder buttons. The music and background effects in the game are reasonable and don’t intrude on your game however the voice effects can be somewhat annoying and can on occasion be drowned out by the other effects. Despite the complexity that could be introduced by controlling 3 characters the controls are actually very easy. The sensitivity has a very good balance and the fact that you really only need two buttons and the control stick for most actions is helpful.

 

Conclusion:

Mario Kart: Double Dash is extremely fun to play, as every Mario Kart game has been. The whole product feels very Nintendo and so is sleek and polished in every aspect. The addition of a second character to the kart has certainly improved the experience however isn’t enough to give the single player much more longevity than previous games. Probably the most surprising aspect though is that the traditional multiplayer game isn’t the most enjoyable mode in MKDD. Instead it’s the Grand Prix Co-op mode. Playing with co-op opens up the full potential of the game allowing you to get the most from the control system and the game. If you enjoyed the previous Mario Kart games you’ll no doubt love this one and if you’re looking for a game to have a bit of fun in multiplayer you cant go wrong with this.

Sonic Heroes: despite some level design flaws (Casino Park) is a completely enjoyable rollercoaster ride of a game. The new 3 character control system is, in my opinion, a complete success and adds an excellent twist on the 3D platform game. The action is pretty much non stop and the game can be quite challenging. I’m quite sure that many people wont play it through with all teams however even if you were to play only as Sonic team the 16 levels plus special stages and challenge mode do mean that the game should last you a long time. My only real complaint about the game as a whole is that some puzzle solving elements would have been a welcome addition. Having said that the game obviously sets out to be a platform action game, not a puzzle game and therefore succeeds.