Thankfully, and unlike some Xbox Live enabled games, there's much, much more to Mario Kart DS than just simple online racing. In fact, its single player component is about as meaty as a well fed wooly mammoth, but that's really the whole story of this game. Nintendo's shoved lots of content into it and the result is a devilishly enthralling title that'll keep you busy for weeks. There's the Grand Prix mode that features about 20 different courses (some brand new, others pulled from previous games) to check out, but there's also Time Trials, Vs (where you can wirelessly race and Battle against up to seven other people using a single game cart), and the most intriguing mode, Missions, where you have to meet specific challenges that'll test your karting skills, some of which require you to tackle bosses from Super Mario 64. There are also a few characters that you can unlock and they join an already solid if not vanilla list that includes Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Bowser, Wario, Princess Peach, and Donkey Kong, among other racers. Each of them has at least three different vehicles that vary in Speed, Acceleration, Weight, Handling, Drift, and new to the series, Items, which determines which sorts of weapons you'll pick up.

Personally, I'm conflicted with the weapons. On one hand, tossing bananas onto the court and hitting people with red shells can be lots of fun. Plus, Nintendo's added some new items such as the Bullet Bill and the Blooper which are pretty cool. But on the other hand, and this ties into the faster vehicles, the game creates too much of a dependence on these items. Winning doesn't always mean you raced better than everyone else but instead hit the leader with a spiny shell at the last possible moment. That's certainly all right when everyone's neck and neck but not when I've been in first place for three quarters of the game. All's fair in love and Mario Kart DS, but more often than not such occurrences leave me feeling cheated.

The reliance on items isn't that big a deal. Rather, it's the faster karts that truly bug me. Speedy as hell, they render most of the other vehicles in the game useless, and what winds up happening is people keep using the same damn karts again and again. This is also where the weapons come into play, because some karts are so impossible to cleanly pass that weapons are the only way to win, and even then you're leaving your fate up to a roll of the dice. You're never guaranteed to acquire a spiny blue shell or a Bullet Bill just because you're getting your ass kicked.

All complaints aside, this is a damn good videogame. It must be, because for the first time in my life I actually care about a Mario Kart to such a degree that I'm going back and replaying all of the prequels to see what I've missed. As for the online quirks, yeah, Nintendo made some weird decisions and I hope these friend codes don't keep popping up in future games, but being able to pick up my DS and blaze through a quick four races against someone across the world is always too enticing an opportunity to pass up. Loaded with goodies and irresistible to resist, Mario Kart DS is fun in its purest form.