I saw an opossum today. I was just walking down the sidewalk and the little bugger just jumped out right in front of me -- I kid you not. At first I was just about to step on it, but that was the course of action when I thought it was a big trash bag that blew into the middle of the sidewalk. When I realized that the trash had eyes, which were oddly enough attached to a rodentish head, I realized that this wasn't just any trash bags. It was a trash bag that was starting me down. I halted all of my bodily movements at once, thinking at first that this mysterious beast was a cute little kitty cat, so I bent over to begin petting the scared little guy. Then I realized it was a possum, and I withdrew my hand slowly-yet-quickly, and just stared at the furry little big-rat-mouse-thing that was following my eyes as they sized up this little guy -- it was, in fact, the first live opossum I had ever seen. I extended my hand and waved to him, he cocked his head, and we went our separate ways. True story.

Then I wondered if my little friend was victim to a speeding car soon after we had parted ways, which brings up a good point, that it's now time to meet this list's midsection; the #5 ranked game of 2005 across the Playstation 2, GameCube, Xbox, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance, and PC.

Mario Kart DS -- Published and Developed By: Nintendo
The Mario Kart franchise has for a long time been one of my well-liked series in modern gaming, but I'll be honest with you: the series' finest point was reached with the Super Nintendo version of the game. Mario Kart 64 and Mario Kart: Double Dash were both failed attempts at mimicking the formula which was executed so well with the SNES game; although, I will say that Mario Kart 64 was alright (Double Dash was just terrible) -- it was just like the SNES version in 3D, if memory serves. In short, the Mario Kart series, while always good, just has not been able to live up to the excellence that was started by the very first title in the series.

Then along came the little system that could. I'm feeling honest tonight, so I'll reveal another secret: I never thought the Nintendo DS would be worth a damn. I figured, hey, Nintendo released the new Virtual Boy, and I had stuck with my prediction of ultimate failure with the NDS for a fairly long time. I still believed that the system was a failure up until I started hearing crazy, crazy tales of gaming on the system from a beast called ShackHype (its powers of mind-control are simply overwhelming), and I finally gave into the hype and hinted at my mom a few times that it'd be an awesome Christmas idea. I emerged the victor on Christmas Eve, and it was good. It was real good.

Namely, though, I got just a ridiculous amount of joy out of playing Mario Kart DS. It was the most fun I've ever had playing a game on a handheld (Final Fantasy Tactics Advance being a close contender for this title, as well). I played it all night long, I played it in between missions in my brief stint of EVE Online playing, and I played it in between any times of any sort of activity. Hell, I still play it all the time. It's just a fantastic game to play at those "I have a few minutes of nothing to do" moments -- along with just about any other time.

Tycho from Penny-Arcade said it best when he was saying that the Nintendo DS was really turning into a huge new platform for Nintendo (direct link to post):

"The games hitting the DS now in their major franchises aren't the filthy ports with a few bonuses tacked on I feared would dominate the machine - they're actually the legitimate sequels, definitive versions that replace the old ones in terms of features and I daresay fun. The new Animal Crossing game for the DS is Animal Crossing II, with the multiplayer that was clamored for. The Mario Kart that is out for the DS is the new Mario Kart. Not the "portable version," not the constrained subset. It's the most robust offering in the franchise."

And I absolutely agree in every way. The games on the DS that I've played thus far, although limited, have been fantastic; Mario Kart DS (which I'll get back to in a moment), of course, as well as Viewtiful Joe -- although I've heard this one is a bit of a rehashing of the same tried-and-true VJ gameplay. A big surprise for me was just how much I've been enjoying Nintendogs, a game that I had originally played for fifteen minutes and got frustrated with the voice command gameplay that I had tried at the time. I had later picked up the game and tried everything else it had to offer, and I haven't used a single voice command in the game since -- an action which limits the number of "contests" I can enter my dog in from three to two, but something I'm very okay with. As a quick promise, I'll go into an in-depth analysis of the system later, when I also have Animal Crossing Wild World in my possession, which should be soonish.


In the meantime, though, it's time to head back to tracks for Mario Kart DS -- it is, after all, the real focus of this article. If you're unfamiliar with the basic gameplay structure, here's a quick one-line description: you go through a number of grand prix cups at three speed/difficulty classes in a number of races against seven other competitors against the AI in order to unlock all sorts of cool stuff; there are also missions to be played, which primarily introduce you to the gameplay and help to incubate your racing prowess. The secondary screen in this game (which is the touchpad) is used in a manner which we would all expect it to: it's a map. You can choose one of two zoom levels for the map: one which will show you the entire track in low-detail and then a closer-up shot which shows the lay of the land as well as any potential obstacles and opposing racers.

The real treat of this cart (haha) though is the wireless internet matches you can play. Thanks to Nintendo's ingenius idea of including a wireless connection inside the DS, you can connect to any wireless point (or buy an adapter to have a more sure-fire configuration/compatibility). Thankfully, I had no setup required in order to get my DS online and racing against other people from across the globe in a nice four person free-for-all through a four-race competition. You can also connect specifically to some friends for some friends-only Mario Kart play (as long as you know each other's twelve-digit "friend code"). There are even some basic stats recorded per-name, in a manner similar to the way stats are recorded on Blizzard's Battle.net. The only downside I have with this system is that there is absolutely no way to communicate with others during a race, which reduces the entertainment of the wireless matches by a decent amount.

All in all, Mario Kart DS is not only an incredible game, it's the true sequel to the SNES version of the game that I've been waiting for years for. There are simply so many different components of this game that I, even after hours upon hours of gameplay, have yet to go through in their entirety.


And let's not even get into the amount of time I've spent playing wireless matches. Oh, the fun. It almost hurts.