{"id":1536,"date":"2012-10-30T11:28:16","date_gmt":"2012-10-30T11:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=1536"},"modified":"2012-10-30T11:28:16","modified_gmt":"2012-10-30T11:28:16","slug":"my-top-100-58-mario-kart-64","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=1536","title":{"rendered":"My Top 100: #58 &#8211; Mario Kart 64"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_1544\" style=\"width: 804px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/MarioKart64.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1544\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1544\" title=\"MarioKart64\" src=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/MarioKart64.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"794\" height=\"549\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/MarioKart64.jpg 794w, http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/MarioKart64-300x207.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 794px) 100vw, 794px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1544\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">1997 &#8211; Nintendo (Nintendo 64)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>When I started putting\u00a0my list together, I knew that there should be\u00a0a <em>Mario Kart <\/em>game on it.\u00a0 After all, the original was an unexpected surprise, and my whole family had a good laugh whenever we\u00a0played it.\u00a0 Its sequel on\u00a0the Nintendo 64\u00a0was great as well, but aside from <em>Mario Kart DS<\/em>, it seemed like the series leveled off; &#8220;here&#8217;s more of the same, with different tracks, similar-looking graphics\u00a0and more racers &#8211; have fun!&#8221;\u00a0 The <em>New Super Mario Bros. <\/em>series has fallen into this same predicament, and although the games are still fun, the initial charm has worn off.<\/p>\n<p>So that left three honestly awesome <em>Mario Kart <\/em>games to choose from; the original, the first 3D entry into the series, or the first with online play&#8230;\u00a0 hmm.\u00a0 In terms of overall favourites, there could be only one.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hFMo7fqbjvM\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>With <em>Mario Kart 64<\/em>, I find that the &#8220;wow&#8221; factor is still there for me.\u00a0 That first time I played the Royal Raceway track, went over that massive, stomach-lurching\u00a0jump at the end of\u00a0a ramp, and &#8211; &#8220;POOMP!&#8221; &#8211; landed with a satisfying thud on the other side.\u00a0 Not only that, but you zoomed by Princess Peach&#8217;s Castle from <em>Super Mario 64 <\/em>right afterwards!!!\u00a0 I found that that\u00a0was a cool Easter Egg&#8230;\u00a0 um, wait, you can EXPLORE the area around it???<\/p>\n<p>Amazing!!\u00a0 That just made the game pure win, right then and there.\u00a0 If this track yielded secrets to those who didn&#8217;t care about losing time doing some actual racing, then the rest of them could, too!<\/p>\n<p>Whenever I&#8217;d get the chance to rent a Nintendo 64, I&#8217;d rent this along with it.\u00a0 Yeah, the racing was fun, and the new drifting\\boost mechanics were pretty cool, but the fact that the tracks had so much character was what did it for me.\u00a0 This was still pretty early on in the N64&#8217;s lifecycle, and getting a new perspective on various\u00a0landscapes (such as the chocolate track, the haunted one and the DK Jungle) was a whole lot of fun.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1545\" style=\"width: 440px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/4921625_460s.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1545\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1545\" title=\"4921625_460s\" src=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/4921625_460s.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"430\" height=\"540\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/4921625_460s.jpg 430w, http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/4921625_460s-238x300.jpg 238w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 430px) 100vw, 430px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1545\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">If I had a nickel for every time this happened&#8230;<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; When I started putting\u00a0my list together, I knew that there should be\u00a0a Mario Kart game on it.\u00a0 After all, the original was an unexpected surprise, and my whole family had a good laugh whenever we\u00a0played it.\u00a0 Its&#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=1536\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,23,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mario","category-nintendo-64","category-top-100"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1536"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1553,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1536\/revisions\/1553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}