Well, Mario Kart. What can I say? I haven’t played one since 64, but obviously it’s the hotness. I don’t particularly care to pursue it, but hearing again that DS had a Mission Mode (during discussions of Mario Kart 8’s shortcomings) prompted me to borrow it from my brother. No, I wouldn’t buy the thing!

You could say I’m in the Diddy Kong Racing camp. I just like my games to have a little more depth, and since I’m your basic antisocial nerd, the multiplayer components of most games are lost on me. As it turns out, I found MKDS’s missions to be quite cool, especially when you have a boss fight against Super Mario 64 DS’s bosses.

It’s also the most crossover-y Mario Kart, which appealed to me (not counting the Arcade ones with their Pacmans and Tamagotchis and drums, but pretty awful gameplay, or MK8’s not-yet-available DLC; I’ve written off that game already). I guess when you get right down to it, R.O.B. and the Blue Falcon don’t amount to much, but… well, I’ve already undercut my point, but to be fair, I played this game before the DLC thing.

It wasn’t exactly a full experience borrowing it like this: my bro had already unlocked most stuff. I just tried to see all the content, and do the missions. It was fine. Seeing how much better his times were on some missions took me right back to childhood competitions. And considering also I haven’t played one since 64, overall it was a somewhat nostalgic experience.

I’m putting my foot down now though: no matter the fancy graphics and lighting effects, no matter how many weirdo characters they add, I’m not buying a Mario Kart until that mission mode comes back, or at least some other single-player options. I absolutely did not buy into the MK8 hype, and I feel a bit of a minority in my position to want more from the franchise. Pink Gold Peach and Baby Rosalina most certainly did not help. Enough whining though, I’ve got more games to play. Now should I play Konami Krazy Racers, or a Crash Team Racing? Maybe I’ll fire up the old Nokia emulator for Rayman Kart.