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08th Aug 2018

10 things we all love about the classic SNES classic, Super Mario Kart

Who else remembers all this retro video game brilliance?

Paul Moore

Super Mario Kart

Iconic.

In terms of the truly iconic video games, Super Mario Kart will surely rank as one of the most beloved games of all time. Truth be told, nothing can ever beat the Battle Royale mode when you had endless craic with your mates on the Super Nintendo.

On that note, we have decided to take a look at 10 truisms about the classic game.

1) Laughing at anyone who chooses Princess Daisy/Peach.

Everyone had their favourite characters and we always raced as Yoshi because he provided the perfect blend of speed, strength and stamina… plus you know he is a green lizard that made that awesome whiplash noise.

Bowser was too slow, Toad was too light and Mario was too annoying. If anyone selected Princess Peach then they needed their head examined because she was absolutely awful.

Princess Peach

Image via – Mario Wiki

2) Flooring the accelerator at the start of the race only to go into lockdown.

All rookie Mario Kart drivers made this mistake. They would press their finger down on the accelerator button so hard that it caused their ignition to crap out. Meanwhile, all the experienced drivers timed their starting burst so well that they were miles ahead of you.

*Cue evil laugh*

Mario Start

3) Leading a race in the final lap only for the next person to get a Red Shell.

We’ve all been in this situation.

Your race tactics were perfect and you’re clearly a better driver than all of your mates, except for that one jammy git whose ‘power up’ box gave them a red shell in the final lap. There was no worse feeling than leading the race as you enter the last stretch of the final lap only to be fired out of pole position.

Wars have been started for less.

Red Shells

4) Those annoying/clever people that left banana skins right over the power up boxes or near bends.

This used to drive us crazy because you always had a tricky bend to navigate, which was made worse by the presence of a carefully-dropped banana skins. A brilliant driving strategy that Sebastian Vettel or Lewis Hamilton would be proud of.

Banana

5) Falling off the edge.

Rainbow Road.

Two of the most frustrating words in the dictionary. This level was so annoying to play because there were no edges, no gravel and no grass on the edge of the track.  We can’t even tell you the the amount of times that we fell off the track and drifted into oblivion.

Rainbow Road

6) The eternity that it took to be lowered onto the track.

The sheer amount of hatred that we have for that little turtle cloud man, called a Lakitu apparently, cannot be expressed. Imagine this scenario; you’ve just  fallen off the edge, you’ve embarrassed yourself with some shocking driving and your mates are laughing at you.

Frustration is building and this guy takes forever to lower you onto the track. We wanted to take that fishing rod away from him and beat him to death.

7) Hitting yourself with your own weapons.

We all can relate to that moment when we fired a green koopa shell that instantly rebounded and hit our own kart. The definition of stupidity right there.

Green Shells

Image via – Nintendo Life 

8) The thrill of hitting a rainbow booster zip patches…

Do you remember the buzz that you would get when driving over the rainbow strips that gave your car a much-needed boost?

We used to love driving over these and then flying over the ramps. It’s the small things.

9) That really awful driver that kept getting all the best power ups…

Part of what makes Mario Kart so amazing is that anyone, no matter how good or bad they are at the game, always had a chance of winning. There have been countess times when the worst driver somehow managed to get the invincible star, red shells, mushroom power ups and ultimately the chequered flag.

10) Having to finish last while everyone else crossed the line ages ago…

This was the video game equivalent of the walk of shame because your friends had all finished while you had to endure the humiliation and abuse of being the last one to cross the line.

Just remember, whatever you do, don’t get lapped because you’ll never be able to live it down.

After writing all of this, we’re off to enjoy a real life game of Mario Kart. Care to join us?

 

Clip via – jvgsjeff

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