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Double Dash is of course the latest in the ongoing series of MarioKart games that have been produced for sometime by Nintendo. Most of these games tend to not follow a storyline and this one is no different. The game is a straight racing game, no storyline involved. So if you are a storyline driven person go find yourself another game to play.

MarioKart Double Dash has a few options as far as modes of play. There is of course the racing portion of the game which is called the Grand Prix mode. You and the partner of your choosing face off against 7 other pairs of competitors in a four race series. In order to win the Grand Prix you have to gain the most points in the four races series. By winning the race you gain 10 points, by finishing second you gain 8 points and so forth. In this mode there are three levels of difficulty, 50cc, 100cc and 150cc with the each level getting harder and harder. The 150cc races are truly difficult; I am still struggling to win the races on that level of play.

There are three different cups that the player can compete in while racing the Grand Prix. The Mushroom Cup, the Flower Cup and the Star Cup. Each cup gets a little bit harder so be prepared for things to get more difficult as you go. Also, once you win all gold’s in both the 50cc and 100cc Grand Prix races you unlock a bonus cup called Special Cup. Be prepared for some really hard racing when you enter this cup on any level because this one is HARD.

The next option for the player is the Time Trial mode. The point of this, of course, is to run the fastest laps you can and finish a set amount of laps in the shortest time possible. The player starts the race with two mushrooms (speed boosters) in hand for use at any point during the time trial. These are best saved for the straight parts of the race track as using them in turns can hurt you more than help you.

Once you run a fast lap on one of these race tracks you can save your “ghost” to your memory card. A ghost is a semi-transparent version of yourself when you ran your record setting race. These can be very helpful when you’re trying to break your own record at a certain race track as it gives you something to shoot for.

As usual there is a versus mode available for play as well in Double Dash. This mode is only available in Multi-Player so make sure you bring a friend when planning on running in the versus mode. Up to four players can compete in this race mode, usually bring the racing to a frantic pace.

The last mode available for play is one of my personal favorites, the Battle Mode. The Battle Mode is, of course, the mode where you and your friends can battle it out at four different tracks in three different battle modes. The three different battle modes are balloon battle, shine thief and bob-omb blast. Balloon battle I remember from MarioKart 64. The idea of the game is this: each player has three balloons and once you lose all three balloons you are eliminated from the game. The last man standing wins. You can loose a balloon by being hit by something or running into a damage-dealing item.

Shine thief is a time based battle mode. In shine thief the players have to pick up the Shine that drops onto the course. Once the Shine is picked up by one of the players a timer starts. The goal is for the player to hold onto the shine until the timer runs out. If a player can do this, he or she wins the game. Simple huh?

In Bom-omb Blast you get to, you guessed it, blow people up with bob-ombs. The point of the game is to blow your opponents up as much as possible with the bob-ombs. Depending on the number of players the first player to 3 or 4 points wins. If you get hit by a bob-omb though you lose a point, so let’s try not to do that ok?

As far as characters are concerned there are plenty to choose from. Mario, Luigi, Bowser, Bowser Jr., Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, and Wario are just some of the available characters for gamers to use. However, select your players carefully as they do make a difference in how fast you are. There are light, medium and heavy characters available to the player. The lighter the character (like Bowser Jr.), the faster you can go. The heavier the character (like Donkey Kong), the slower you go. The same applies for the Karts that you can choose from.

There are lots of unlockables in this game. The more gold trophies you win the more Karts you unlock. Plus, once you win gold trophies on every level on every cup (including the Special Cup) you unlock a little bonus. I won’t tell you what that is because I don’t want to spoil all the fun. I will tell you this however; if you think you’ve beaten the game once you win Gold Trophies on every Grand Prix than you are sadly mistaken.

All in all MarioKart Double Dash is a blast to play though it can be a bit frustrating in the later levels. If you own a GameCube though this I believe is a must have. Seriously, if you own a Nintendo console and you don’t own a MarioKart game something must be wrong with you. Or maybe there is something wrong with me. Who knows, I certainly don’t. All I know is I loved this game and I really feel that this is a must own for anyone with a Nintendo GameCube.