Double Dash!! fights dirty - or am I imagining it?

Cafe Society
#1

I’ve been playing Mario Kart: Double Dash!! with my fiancée, and we are driving the All-Cup Tour on Mirror Mode. We were tied with another kart for first place going into the 15th race, which was Bowser’s Castle (and we all knew that Rainbow Road was going to be the last race – argh!). We figure if we can just beat that one kart, then we’ll have a 2-point lead going into the last race. So we start the race, and POW! a Double Dash start. We take an early lead. We round the tight U-turn and head down the stairs toward the lava-jump shortcut and POW.

A blue shell. We are deposited by the crane, and POW.

A red shell. We get rolling, and POW.

Rear-ended by a green shell. We’re now in 5th place.

We accelerate over the jump to find a minefield of bananas. We slip and slide through them, make the turn, and begin walking through the karts in front of us. Fourth place, third place… second… and then on the lava-jump right before the long uphill spiral, ZOT.

Lightning! We are deposited in front of the jump ramp again and POW.

A red shell. POW. Rear ended into the lava.

Eighth place. We finally make the jump. For another lap and a half, this utter CRAP continues to rain down on us (including the seventh-place car using a red shell on us, rather than on the car in front of him!), and we limp across the line in a shameful eighth place.

We won Rainbow Road, by the way, and our close competitor ended up fourth. Here’s my question: does the GameCube actually cheat? Does it dole out extra acceleration to large, cumbersome karts, or give the last-place kart a blue shell to “hold on to” until you’re in first? Or am I just focusing on the negative here?

p.s. It seems like the large karts are always able to pull past my Red Shell Kart at the start, even with a Double Dash start–but I’ve got the best acceleration in the game! What gives?

#2

I’m not sure about Double-Dash, but on Mario Cart 64, if you were too far ahead, the computer would speed up the other racers.

This made me really mad at first, but then realized that Mario-Cart wasent so much about the racing, but about the figthing. So my suggestion is to just sit back, enjoy the ride, and take those bastards DOWN! :cool:

#3

I wouldn’t say that the game cheats so much as makes 150 cc races very competitive. It does seem the other carts always get a better start than you. I can’t tell you how many times I have been hit with a blue shell on the last turn of the last lap while in 1st place only to end in 2nd or 3rd. I’ve resisted throwing my controller through the TV set so far!

#4

[QUOTE]

Oh, that’s a great way to spend quality time! I like playing the game with my sisters and father. My father always plays Baby Mario/Luigi, so he can throw out those annoying Chain Chomps.

If you’re in first place, there isn’t much you can do about those. Other than see if you can take anyone with you. One of my less brilliant moments was using a blue spiney shell while in first place. Unlike MK64, this means that you’re going to get blown up pretty quickly.

Didn’t you have any items to block it with? Generally that’s all the stuff you get while in first is good for.

At least you get better items, like stars now!

Stupid woodchucks. At least this is better than previous games, where a lightning bolt at the wrong jump, especially in Wario Stadium, would pretty much be the end of someone, as they’re sent back a long ways.

Oh ouch.

Now that’s a bit odd… How close were you to the 7th place car? In general, red shells don’t seek anyone out when shot backwards, and they move somewhat slowly, but it still might be unavoidable. And when it comes to minefields, nothing beats Baby Park on 150cc. In MKDD, the AI got a lot more savage, but in general, I don’t think they single you out.

Unlike in Mario Kart 64, I have not seen any particular evidence that the AI in this game cheats. It is very competitive, but if you watch, you can see that they’ll be just as viscious to each other. Often when I’m trailing, I’ll see blue shells fly by to go knock out the CPU player. Several times, I’ve made it to first by virtue of someone else’s blue shell that I managed to avoid. Don’t forget that the item quality is inversely proportional to placing for EVERYONE, so if you lead a lot, things seem more unbalanced.

This is generally because of their high top-speed. The DD start-up will give you a quick boost, but they get more or less the same boots, and can maintain a higher top speed in my experience.

MK:DD is by far my favorite Mario Kart game. Keep up, it’s actually kind of fun to have an AI that gives you a challenge!

Brian, whom always uses Toad and Toadette whenever possible.

#5

Oh, that’s a great way to spend quality time! I like playing the game with my sisters and father. My father always plays Baby Mario/Luigi, so he can throw out those annoying Chain Chomps.

If you’re in first place, there isn’t much you can do about those. Other than see if you can take anyone with you. One of my less brilliant moments was using a blue spiney shell while in first place. Unlike MK64, this means that you’re going to get blown up pretty quickly.

Didn’t you have any items to block it with? Generally that’s all the stuff you get while in first is good for.

At least you get better items, like stars now!

Stupid woodchucks. At least this is better than previous games, where a lightning bolt at the wrong jump, especially in Wario Stadium, would pretty much be the end of someone, as they’re sent back a long ways.

Oh ouch.

Now that’s a bit odd… How close were you to the 7th place car? In general, red shells don’t seek anyone out when shot backwards, and they move somewhat slowly, but it still might be unavoidable. And when it comes to minefields, nothing beats Baby Park on 150cc. In MKDD, the AI got a lot more savage, but in general, I don’t think they single you out.

Unlike in Mario Kart 64, I have not seen any particular evidence that the AI in this game cheats. It is very competitive, but if you watch, you can see that they’ll be just as viscious to each other. Often when I’m trailing, I’ll see blue shells fly by to go knock out the CPU player. Several times, I’ve made it to first by virtue of someone else’s blue shell that I managed to avoid. Don’t forget that the item quality is inversely proportional to placing for EVERYONE, so if you lead a lot, things seem more unbalanced.

This is generally because of their high top-speed. The DD start-up will give you a quick boost, but they get more or less the same boots, and can maintain a higher top speed in my experience.

MK:DD is by far my favorite Mario Kart game. Keep up, it’s actually kind of fun to have an AI that gives you a challenge!

Brian, whom always uses Toad and Toadette whenever possible.

#6

As another poster already stated, it was the same in Mario Kart 64. If you were in first place the entire race without seeing another racer you can bet good money you’ll start seeing them in the final lap.

We finally unlocked all the unlockables yesterday afternoon. Now we just play to shoot shells at each other. Quality time!

#7

We changed our tactics, and have now beaten the game (that mirror mode All-Cup Tour was the last thing we needed to win). Instead of racing for first place every time, we simply strove to beat the one kart that was closest to us in the standings. Weapons that would ordinarily move us up a place in line would stay holstered until we could use them on the target car. By always defeating our closest competition by two points (and often allowing a mediocre kart to pass us) we continued to climb the ranks while three other karts struggled to close the standings gap between my kart and theirs. By forcing a two- and three-way tie for second between multiple computer opponents, we kept the GameCube from being able to develop any of them as a serious threat.

To keep track of what was going on, we developed a shorthand: a barrel with Donkey Kong driving was simply “Monkey.” The Petey Pirhana in the green pipes car became “Audrey” or “The Plant”. Wario’s car was “Caddy.” King Boo driving a car with baby bowser was “Team Ghost Lizard”. This led to some interesting pre-race chatter as we tried to remember (from the standings update) who we were up against.

“Who is our enemy?”
“The Monkey is our enemy. Destroy the Monkey.”
“Right. Destroy the Monkey.”

Now that I have destroyed the monkey, we have unlocked the Parade Kart. It’s a nice, beefy touring sedan, but man oh man, it handles badly.