Mario Kart has come out for the DS, and it is one of the first WiFi enabled games to finally be released, after a year of the DS’s life span. It has been well worth the wait. Combining a classic and amazingly fun game with the ability to play anybody around the world in a moment’s time is awesome and in the case of MK:DS, has been performed brilliantly.

First however, let me talk about the non-WiFi features. There is single player, of course, as well as local multiplayer. There is both single and multi-card multiplayer as well, up to eight players.

From those, there are your Grand Prix, single race (VS), Time Trial, two Battle modes, and a new Missions mode.

Grand Prix mode is fairly expansive, with two sets of GP’s; the Nitro and Retro Cups. The Nitro Cups are composed of all new tracks, most of which are pretty cool, while the Retro Cups are compiled from tracks from previous MK games, from the SNES, GBA, N64, and even GCN. There are four cups in each set, and four tracks in each cup, making up 32 tracks. Then of course, if you have played any MK game, you will know that there are three skill levels; 50cc, 100cc, and 150cc. At first, I thought the game played a little too slow, like, it did not feel like you drove fast at all, however, this is only during the 50cc races.

The single races are just that. Pick a track from any of the cups you have unlocked and enjoy.

Time trial can get pretty nice. Like any time trial, you just pick any track and race through three laps to see if you can get the fastest time. After you complete a race, your ghost data is saved so you can “race” yourself and try for a better time. The ghost data is very nice, mostly due to the use of the bottom screen. In all the races, the bottom screen acts as a map, which I will get into later, but in Time Trial, it records all your driving and moves, with color codes for boosts, drifting, and regular driving, so you can know what you did last time, via your ghost data, which is really cool.

If your time is good enough, you will unlock the Staff Ghost data, which is probably the fastest time any Nintendo employee finished that track, so have yourself a challenge and try to beat him/her. And unlike MK:DD for the GCN, these ghosts are saved, thankfully. We all know what a fiasco that was.

Also, you can send, or recieve for that matter, ghost data from other players, locally. So you can trade times with your friends and play against there ghosts, which is pretty cool. You can only have one ghost data of your own for each track, which makes sense, and also 10 ghosts from your friends total.

There are two battles modes; the regular Balloon Battle, and then Shine Runners. Balloon Battle has been revamped a little bit to use a particular DS feature, which is pretty inventive. You see, when you start a Balloon Battle, you only start with one balloon inflated, out of five balloons. So in order to inflate the other ballons, you have to blow into the microphone!!! Hehe, you have to admit, it’s pretty cool. However, you can hold the Select button instead, but it takes longer to inflate. Like usual, you can only have 3 balloons at once though. Also, if you run into an opponent with a mushroom boost or star, then you steal a balloon, if you have a free slot open that is. Do not forget to inflate your balloons, for if you only have one inflatted and lose it, then you lose even if you have uninflatted balloons.

There are six courses to play on in Battle Mode, the same ones in both Balloon Battle and Shine Runners. Now, in Shine Runners, there are numerous Shine Sprites scattered throughout the level, with the goal being to collect as many as possible. If someone gets hit with an item or falls of the course, then they lose a Shine Sprite, if they had one that is, so anyone can then go to where they got hit and pick up the Shine. After a certain amount of time, the player with the least amount of Shines will be kicked out. This pattern returns until there is only one survivor. It can get pretty intense.

In all these multiplayer games, Battles and VS, you can not only use computer players, which is awesome for battle, but you can also set up teams, which is sweet. You can only make two teams, but it is a pretty cool feature.

The last mode is your new Missions mode. This is a single player mode in which you strive to complete little mini-missions in six levels, with eight challenges and one boss per level. These missions range from “Collect all the coins,” to “Drive through the gates,” to “Finish first,” and even to “Do 5 Power-Slides.” These missions are not entire races, just short little challenges. They are pretty cool, and the later levels provide a lot of challenge actually.

These missions, as well as the GP’s, are ranked from three stars to one star, and then from A-E, with the triple star being the best grade and “E” being the worst. This is what provides the most challenge and drive to play these missions over and over again, trying to complete them in a fast enough time to get a better rating.

Multiplayer is set up in a very nice fashion; of which I wish WiFi was set up in. There are four rooms, each of which can fit in 8 players, and the names of the players are listed, which is very nice and easy to see who you will be playing with and then select such players.

Now for the WiFi, the reason this game pwns so much. Please bare with me, for this section will probably be a long one, and then I will talk about more general game mechanics and what not. I will not be giving a lesson in how to connect via WiFi, but put it simply that you can either go to a hotspot, at a library, McDonald’s, Starbucks, etc; or, if you have DSL or cable internet, get a wireless router or the Nintendo WiFi Connector and connect that way. So once you are in a hotspot, you go to the Nintendo WFC option and connect. Once you connect, you will be given a Friend Code, which is a 12-digit number, in which you can exchange with your friends in order to play them via one of the WiFi modes.

There are four options you can choose from to “choose” who you will be playing against: Regional, Worldwide, Friends, and Rivals. Regional races take players from in your country, while worldwide takes any player who is currently connected and available to play with. Once you have recieved some Friend Codes from your buds, you can enter them and then play against your friends using the Friends option. You can have up to 60 friends, and their stats of games you’ve played together will be saved to your game, which is always good. The Rivals option will set you up to play against others that are around your same skill level, probably in accordance to your Win/Lose record.

Here’s the main problem with WiFi: you cannot choose who you will play against. It is not the worst thing in the world, but it would have been nice to have a lobby system of some sort, like Multiplayer, instead of being randomly matched up against people. Other than that, the WiFi is good. There is no lag during gameplay or anything of the sort. Sometimes, it does take a little while to find players to race against, but that is probably because the game is very new and not too many people have it or access to WiFi at this time, but I’m sure that problem will change. Another “bad” thing about WiFi is that like in your normal racing, you cannot drag items behind you, like a banana or shell…but that is a minor complaint.

Now, with the WiFi, you can only play againt three other players, which is not bad by any means, but eight would have been better. Anyways, the gameplay is like a GP, in which you play four tracks, getting points for how well you place each time. This is a cool part though; you get to choose which track to play on, out of 20 tracks. Well, each player chooses one track, and either the track with the highest votes is the one played on, or it is randomly selected from the four choices.

WiFi makes the game a lot more fun, just knowing that you are playing with fellow gamers is awesome, but of course this is coming from a guy who does not get the chance to play against too many actual people. It’s just fun though, the competition, and frustrating with those cheaters out there…*grumble* You know the type, those guys who hold onto those red turtle shells unto you reach the finish line when you are in first, only to hit you making you finish 3rd or last….gah…
Also, you can connect your DS to nintendo’s site, nintendowifi.com, which will record all of your stats and if you are good enough, or play enough matches, then you will show up on the scoreboard, which would be pretty cool. Also, you will be one of the ones listed as online so you can see all the people who are currently playing.

Then you have all your records. In the Records area, you can look at all you and your friends’ records, from wins and losses in WiFi, battle, and vs., to times in Time Trials, and scores and times in GP’s. The records are set up nicely, very clear and smooth looking. Good stuff.

Onto the cool gameplay mechanics and specifics of the new features and what not. I guess the characters would be a logical place to start. You start out with eight characters to choose from, each with two character-specific karts. Throughout the game, you can unlock a few more characters and another kart for each one. Each character is in a certain weight class; light, medium, or heavy, of which have certain general stats. The light characters have good acceleration, but low high speed, while it is the opposite with the heavy characters. You can also nudge people around which can be pretty fun, if you are the big guy that is, because you can knock people off the track, or into bananas and other such objects; hehe, it can be fun. Back to the idea of stats, each kart has its own stats, with attributes in Speed, Acceleration, Weight, Handling, Drift, and Items.

There are two new items, although I like to say that there are three, since the bob-omb is kind of new, although it was in MK:DD. The bob-omb is a sweet weapon. Anyways, the two true new items are the Blooper and Bullet Bill. If you use the Blooper, then any player in front of you will get ink shot at them that will partially cover their screen and obstruct their vision, making it very difficult to see where to go. The Bullet Bill acts like the Chain Chomp did in MK:DD, but it is a little different. Using this item will actually turn you into a Bullet Bill for a short period in time, in which you are launched forward, descimating any opponent in your way.

Some weapons and items have changed however. The blue shell that attacks the first place player explodes like it did in MK:DD which is a welcomed change. When you get hit by any explosive, you lose whatever item you had, which is unfortunate. When you get struck by lighting, turned small, and then hit, you do not get flattened, but merely knocked around, which is dissapointing. A nice change is that pretty much any item can be sent backwards. Now, you can send red shells backwards, although I am pretty sure that if you do that then they will not lock on. Also, when you get triple shells, you can send any of those backwards as well, which is another welcomed change.

The new tracks are pretty cool, in that they have a nostalgic feeling to them, brining in enemies and elements from old Mario games, like that evil sun guy from Super Mario 3, and those sewer mole guys that are on the flying ships also in SM3. It is nice to see such elements and characters being used; brings a smile to your face.

A really cool feature, that is mostly important for multiplayer and WiFi, is that you can create your own emblem and put it on your kart; the emblem will also be displayed as a little cursor over your kart to point out which player is which. The emblem maker is pretty nice, with all the necessary tools. There are multiple sized brushes to use, as well as an eraser and filler tool. There are numerous colors and many “badges” or pre-made shapes you can use. The area to make your emblem is set up in a grid system, in very tiny pixels, so you can make fairly good icons if you are artistically inclined to begin with. I’ve raced a few times on WiFi and people had some crazy cool icons, like a metroid and all kinds of awesome stuff. You can make some really good stuff.

Being a DS game, there must be some use for the other screen, in this case being the bottom screen, which is used as a very useful map. The map has two views; one that shows the entire track, and the other that is a more detailed and zoomed in view which is very helpful. This closed-up view will give you a better idea of how close enemies are, as well as show you items and objects that are coming at you, like turtle shells coming from behind, or bananas scattered on the road. It will also show item boxes, which is helpful in determining if it is a real item box or a fake one, for the fake ones will show up red on the map.

Also, the bottom screen shows the placement of the players, from 1st to last, and also what item each person has, which can be VERY handy in certain situations, hehe. Like during this one race I had via WiFi. I had a blue turtle shell that takes out the 1st place guy, and I was in 1st place, with two other guys right behind me. I slammed on my breaks to get someone else to get in 1st so I could cream them, but they knew what I had and also slammed on their breaks…It was hilarious. So yes, the bottom screen is very useful. Like I said, it can be used to see where your competitors are, so you can block them off if they are trying to pass, or try not to get directly in front of them if they have an item and so forth. You just have to play smart and you can use the bottom screen in very intelligable ways.

The controls are very simple. “A” is accelerate, “B” is brake, “L” fires an item, while “R” jumps and holding it down allows you to drift. While drifting, you can press the D-pad left and right multiple times in order to gain a chance to Power-Slide, which is an extra little boost. It is a simple skill to learn that can be very useful to gain that extra edge. You click the touch screen to change the map view. You can also use the other regular buttons to switch the map’s view or use items.

Well, that is it. Mario Kart DS provides a lot of nice modes and challenges, and with the implementation of WiFi, you will be playing for months and months to come, playing against hundreds of thousands of gamers like yourself. It is classic Mario Karting at its best, with the same old awesome items and weapons, classic characters of which you will find a favorite, which you probably already have in MK’ing past, with sweet-looking karts and awesome tracks. You cannot lose with this game, possibly the best the DS has to offer, especially with WiFi. Also, Nintendo can give the game patches, making the WiFi experience even better and more efficient. I have seen the future of the DS, and let me tell you, it looks good.

Fuse’s second attempt at a pinball game using a Nintendo franchise, with its first being Mario Pinball, is much better than the former.

This time around, Fuse has implemented many Metroid Prime elements into this pinball title, creating some great action and awesome gameplay that greatly reflect the gameplay in Prime, strangely enough, since the genres are so different.

The first thing you will notice when you power on this puppy is the graphics. They are simply stunning and translated very well from the GCN to the DS. There are many things you will see that will instantly remind you of Prime from the Cube. It’s amazing how well they could transplant the graphics to this game. It is very apparent that Retro Studies helped out in this feat.

All of the tables, which relate directly to a section and environment of Metroid Prime, such as the Phazon Mines, Tallon Overworld, or Phendrana Drifts, are amazingly redesigned to fit the game and display the worlds brilliantly and are at once very reminiscent and will remind the player of them. The detail and shear beauty of the tables are just outstanding, and if you have played Prime, then you will just be flabbergasted at how the tables remind you of Prime’s environments.

Aside from the gameplay itself, the other thing that makes a Prime game is its enemies, and again, Metroid Prime Pinball delivers the same feeling as past Prime games. The enemies vary from the regular ones that appear all the time, such as Metroids, Shriekbats, Space Pirates, and Triclops, to the beautifully rendered bosses. I don’t know how Fuse did it, but the bosses look exactly like the one’s from Prime. Even though they have been shrunken to fit the DS’s screens, they still look amazing; from Thardus, to an Omega Pirate, to Metroid Prime herself; it’s incredible.

Also, the effects are very nice. The items on-screen look very nice, and the little explosions and boss’s moves are excellently displayed, such as Metroid Prime’s acid attack or the Omega Pirate’s earthquake attack. I cannot emphasize enough how great the graphics are.

They seem like they came directly from Metroid Prime Hunters, although these games are being developed by completely different people. I mean, the menus and other screens are very reminiscent of MPH. One disappointment is that there are no real cutscenes. There are two or three little four second or so scenes which are pretty stunning, again like MPH’s, but they are very short and just a nice little touch, nothing more.

There is not really a story to Metroid Prime Pinball, however, it is apparent that it draws directly from Metroid Prime for the GCN, for, although there are no cutscenes are any story telling, the tables flow in such a way that follows Prime’s story line. So, if you have not played and beaten Prime, then you may not get the full enjoyment and understanding out of MPP.

The audio is another department that is seemingly integrated into MPP from Prime’s own music and sound effects. The music from every environment is taken from the ones from Prime, as is other music, such as the ominous Space Pirates’ presence, or the Metroids’ shrieking entrance.

The controls are very simple and intuitive, with many ways to manipulate the flippers. You can use either the shoulder buttons to control the flippers, the D-pad alone, or the left d-pad for the left flipper and the A button for the right, so there are many options to choose from, assuring that you will find one you like.

The B button is used to place bombs, and like in many Metroid games, you have three regenerating bombs to use. Then, once you unlock them, power bombs can be used with the Y button, however you only have one that you can store and have to wait to pick up another one from a fallen enemy. X is used only while in Combat mode to fire missiles.

Another nice feature to the controls is that you tilt by using the touch screen. So you move the touch screen in any direction you want the tilt to be in, however I find this kind of difficult to do since you will be so focused on the ball, and you cannot really flick the flippers and tilt at the same time, but you may find a way.

The gameplay itself is nice and varied, with lots of little modes and mini-games to play, not just slinging Samus around hitting bumpers and lights. For starters, you are indeed Samus in her morph ball, but not all the time. As Samus, you have a health meter, so be weary of those Metroids and other enemies that will do damage to you. Like in any Metroid game though, enemies will occasionally drop health that you can pick up. And like I mentioned before, you can drop bombs like you could in any Metroid game while in morph ball form to hurt enemies or get a little upwards boost. Power bombs do damage to all the enemies on your screen, so save those up.

If you go around a particular loop five times to spell out the word S-A-M-U-S, then you will ready the Combat Saucer, which is in the middle of the two main tables. Here, you will uncurl from your ball and take Samus’ normal form. Then, you will fire off a constant burage of arm canon fire to attack the incoming enemy, which will continually attack until the entire wave is complete. In this little mini-game, you can be hit four times before it ends and you fail. It starts out slow and easy, but then enemies will come pouring at you from left and right, coming from the top screen. Also, once you have unlocked the missiles, you can use those to help, although you can only carry four or five.

Another sweet mini-game that has been implemented, while short, is the use of the screw attack to jump between two walls, killing enemies along the way, to reach the top to get an item of great worth. You jump from wall to wall using the shoulder buttons, and if you fall out of the rhythm, then you will fail, so it will take a try or two to get the hang of it. It is pretty short and easy to accomplish though, which takes away from what it could have possibly been, but it’s a nice little feature, adding to the entire Samus experience as a whole.

There are many more little mini-games and modes, but these occur when Samus is in her morph ball form. Firstly, there is your traditional multiball, of which there is one really cool way of it being done. You see, you have to hit this one target a few times, which opens up this little chamber, and once inside you see Samus’ DNA being replicated and then turned into clones, which are your other balls; it’s pretty sweet. Then you have your Phazon multiball, which consists of two colored balls, red and blue. The red ball can collect the red Phazon, while the blue can collect the blue Phazon, racking you in some major points. With the multiball mode, there are certain ramps that you can take which will give you a Jackpot, Double Jackpot, and then Super Jackpot, of which can be increased by hitting a certain set of bumpers.

Then there are other modes that you activate by hitting your ball into Holograph Mode Selector. There are about four or fives modes to be had from here, all of which are pretty much the same, but involve different enemy types. These include Metroids, Space Pirates, and these burrowing bugs. You have a limited amount of time in which to defeat all of these creatures, but you can get a five second bonus each time by hitting the Holograph Selector.

And with the aformentioned modes, excluding multiball, there are three levels of difficulty each, ascending after completely the previous one. These usually just mean that there will be multiple waves of enemies, making the modes harder to complete. There are also three levels per board, meaning I believe, that the modes will start on that level…

Some other elements worth mentioning is that, for a limited time, there is a force field in between the two flippers to prevent your ball from falling into the unknown, a.k.a. losing. It’s nice and very helpful. Also to prevent losing a ball, there are kickbacks; ya know, those things on each side that kick your ball back up. And since MPP has incorporated so many good ideas from Prime, the kickback system does it again, for the kickbacks are actually those cool morph ball piston things that propel you along ceratin tracks, or are used to manevour through others.

Like many other pinball games, probably just about all of them, you get a bonus after you lose a ball. This is called your Bounty Bonus, and is accumulated from the number of each type of enemy you killed, the specials you collected, and is then multiplyed by how many Bounty Multiplayers you got. These are gotten by running over a certain number of lights, and you can get up to 10x. These bonuses accumulate every ball, so they continually increase, creating some pretty high scores which can come in handy; for instance, if you lose your last ball, that Bounty Bonus could net you an extra ball, saving your round.

There is also this Award Scanner, that you have to activate once by hitting the ball into it, and then again to get the bonus. These bonuses range from Big Points, to an extra ball, to missile refills and so forth. It always gives you something good and works off a spinner/roulette-type mechanic, ya know.

And of course, it would not be a pinball game without a set of high scores, so the top 5-10 high scores, depending on the mode, is saved and always there for you or a friend to beat. And of course, you can place your initials down to claim the score.

There are three modes in MPP: Multi Mission, Single Mission, and Multiplayer. You start off with the two main boards in Single Mission mode, where you try to get the highest score. In Multi Mission mode, you start off at one of the two main boards that are available in Single Mission and then work your way to collect Artifacts and then transport to other mini-boards, where your goal is to gain a new weapon and defeat the boss. Once you have defeated the boss, the board becomes available in the Single Mission mode, where you fight to get the fastest time. This brings in the problem of MPP.

While there are two very nice, full boards, there are four mini-boards that are meant to be beaten in a minute or so. This is the problem. There are not enough boards to keep you entertained for too much longer after you have completed them. Now, do not get me wrong, the boards are pretty awesome, especially the first time you play on them, but it is ignorant to think that you will play them again and again when they are so easily beaten and do not have much depth. Also, after the time you spend playing one of the two good boards for 45 minutes getting a huge high score, you probably will not have much desire to do so again, so with only those two big boards and four small ones, MPP may not take you too long until you get tired of it.

One small redeeming factor is that after you have beaten Multi Mission, you unlock Expert Mode, which starts out each board at Lv. 2 and makes things much more difficult and extends the play out of the game.

Then there is the Multiplayer. In multiplayer mode, you can have an outstanding 8 players competing at one time, which is pretty impressive. However, you can only play on one board, Magmoor Caverns, which is not available any other way. Do not fret though, for you can “practice” this board by yourself and still get the chance to play it even if you do not have others around, so I am very thankful for that myself, since I know I will not have anyone to play with, so I did not miss out on the board.

In order to win, you must accumulate 100,000 points, which can get tricky. If you lose a ball, then your points decrease to the point where you go one rank back. The ranks are shown on-screen in the board, as is a cool little line with the placement of each player. You can do some special things, like hit a target a few times to send your morph ball up a spider track to get a special “S” worth many points. Also, if you hit a few other targets, you can send some Metroids to your opponents, hehe.

It’s just the translation from Prime to MPP is so good…everything, with the environments and enemies. Like, with the Metroids and Triclops, they attack you the same way they would in Prime, and you attack them the same way as well, mostly. Like, Metroids can grab you and you escape by placing a bomb, and you have to destroy the Triclops by planting a bomb for them to eat…It’s just done very well and the similarites are very noticeable and nice for those who are fans of the series.

The bosses are another thing that are just sweet. They are all pretty cool and diverse, and taking direct from Prime, but they retain all of their coolness and style. It is kind of unfortunate however that you defeat all the bosses by using the same method of flicing Samus at them, and doing some extra damage with missiles and Power Bombs, but the bosses still keep things interesting. Also, each one of them has a health meter to show how much health they still have left, so it’s just nice to know.

A special Rumble Pack comes packaged with MPP, which will undoubtabley be used for future DS games, although it should not be compatible with previous ones. The rumble pack is nice and works very well with MPP. It seems to be more geared towards the pinball game, and not like other rumble packs, but only future games will make it known exactly how it can be used. It just seems to rumble and make this noise when hitting certain things, and not when you hit any wall or anything, like an actual pinball table would do. So it will be interesting to see how future games will use it, and if it will work appropriately.

Metroid Prime Pinball is a phenomenal game, with awesome graphics, audio, and many other elements that are very remniscent of Metroid Prime. The pinball physics are done very well, and have not fallen victim to the clunky physics of Mario Pinball, so you can be precise with your flipper hits. Also, you will not get cheated like in other pinball games when the ball falls from great heights directly in the middle with no chance of saving it, so frustrations are kept to a minimum, although MPP is still a challenging experience. MPP would have just been an outstanding game if Fuse added in another two or so full-fledged tables, but the lack just creates too short a game that will be over much sooner than you would like. It is a shame, although MPP is still one of the best pinball games for any handheld.