Double Dash is a lot like the older games in the series. It follows the gameplay laid down in the first two games. Race guys around a series of Nintendo-themed tracks. Nothing too groundbreaking here. But it seems that the older games were just practice for this one.
It’s still in 3D, but it looks less… ‘chunky’ than the N64 offering. The cars and characters look like actual cartoon characters instead of blocky messes. The courses are bigger, more detailed, and all unique.
But where this game really differs from the other games in the series is that it allows for two characters per kart. You have a driver, and you have a ‘gunner’ (someone in charge of using the special items). You can switch up between them at any time, and, yes, you can have another human player take control of the other driver. This makes for some interesting strategy, and some interesting shifting of blame in the event of poor performance. It really requires cooperation and teamwork between the pilots.
Another really neat feature of this game is that is uses the GameCube LAN adapter to allow you to set up two GameCubes, two copies of the game, and two televisions to allow eight people to play at once. Eight! Eight people playing Mario Kart in teams of two (or piloting their own karts) makes for quite the party game.
[...] Mario Kart game on the GameCube was just about perfect. The only thing really missing from it was online play (though there are [...]