Mario Kart DS - Wi-Fi Connection Play Test Preview

Whisked away to Nintendoâ??s European headquarters in Germany yesterday, provided the opportunity to take a near-finished Mario Kart DS for a spin and check it out online via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.

With competition from Nintendoâ??s office in America and Canada jumping online with the DS is a pain-free experience and itâ??s easy to see why their vision of online gaming is significantly different to everybody elseâ??s. Simply select â??Nintendo WFCâ? from the main menu, a 3-step process then searches for an access point, tests the connection and gets you online within a matter of moments.

Naturally being a Nintendo service the Wi-Fi Connection is heavily confined to protect their younger audience. There is no ability to add friends to your roster within the game or on the service, instead gamers need to trade their unique DS number (found on the bottom) with other people offline or via e-mail, although playing locally against your friends will automatically include these to your roster. Four different configurations for finding opponents appears to run throughout games supporting the service; players can either select friends from the roster list, choose equally skilled random competition, opponents from the same continent or finally anyone in the world. There has been some concern due to the service utilising the WEP security method, however as Nintendo pointed out nothing is stored, no credit card details, no addresses not even a username and password!

Moving onto the actual game Mario Kart DS promises to be one of the best in the series to date, although whether or not it can top the SNES version remains to be seen. Without doubt itâ??s certainly the biggest with a total of 32 different tracks, 16 of which are from previous versions; further improvements include the ability for single-players to enjoy the Battle Mode against AI opposition whilst up to 8 players can partake with one cartridge and up to 4 players via the Wi-Fi Connection.

Each characters has a choice of two different karts, whilst a variety of new weapons feature within the game such as annoying ink-splats that cover the screen or the ability to transform into a Bullet Bill and travel at faster speeds until you eventually hit something. One new technique is the ability to slipstream behind opponents, which has the effect of dramatising the action even further and provides the scope for some nail-biting finales.

From what we managed to see itâ??s a return to classic Mario Kart action, however itâ??s the ease of the Wi-Fi service that looks likely to rejuvenate the series. Jumping on effortlessly and playing some Mario Kart is an enjoyable experience; thereâ??s none of the trash-talking that blights Xbox Live and as a result itâ??s a game that everybody can truly enjoy â?“ so much so youâ??ll find it very hard to put the DS down. Each opponent can choose a track and then the game randomly picks one from the selection, moving between them as you continue to race. From the likes of Delfino City thereâ??s a good variety of shortcuts and deviations; some of the courses will have you pulling the hair out whilst Rainbow Road on the DS has to be the best in the series history with plenty of loop-the-loops and curls in traditionally trippy colours!

So all that needs to be said is that playing against opponents from America and Canada was a lag-free experience and felt entirely like Mario Kart should â?“ even though the competition was a little on the easy side! Occasionally waiting for the game to find opponents took a little while, however as Nintendo pointed out the service is built around hundreds of thousands playing, not a few dozen! Further optimisations in the last week are expected to ensure that Mario Kart DS launches the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection with a bang, leaving us with little doubt that this will be the best thing in the series certainly since it first began way back in 1992 on the SNES.