The fifth entry in the Retro Gaming Blogging Challenge is upon us. While there's several games that I return to every now and then there's only one that I've been sticking to regularly every year for 20 years. I'll be focusing on the whole series and the evolution of it instead of focusing on just the one.

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It's Mario Kart!

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Timeless classic

Mario Kart really is a timeless classic that's been a part of my life for 20 years. I played Super Mario Kart on my SNES until it was boxed up several years ago. I never owned Mario Kart 64 but I played it all the time at a friends house. I still have Mario Kart: Double Dash!! for my GameCube which I still keep around. I boot it up every now and then to play. These days the latest edition, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the one I play the most, mainly because it has online features so you don't have to race against bots.

Mario Kart just never gets old. I've probably raced around most of the tracks a thousand times but they're just as fun every time. It really helps that they're accompanied by a great soundtrack. The bass solo in the beginning of that main theme is killer. I really like that Nintendo, at least in recent years, has been recording their soundtracks using full scale orchestras. It brings in some serious quality.

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The life of the party

Mario Kart is, in my opinion, the greatest party game there is. There's nothing better than inviting some friends over to crack open some beers and race around the tracks blasting each other with shells. There's something about not knowing if you're really gonna be friends afterwards. Those blue shells hit harder than the worst breakups.

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This has always been the case with Mario Kart for me, except for the first edition. Super Mario Kart I played mainly alone due to being one of the few of my friends to have a SNES and I only had one controller. I didn't own Mario Kart 64 myself but I played it at a friends house all the time. We used to all bring our own controller and huddle around his TV to go racing. I think we had the most fun playing the legendary balloon battles. We had a thing where the winner would get to choose a punishment for the losers.

These days there's always beer involved and we play the whole range of games. I have a friend who keeps all the retro consoles with most editions of both Mario Kart and Super Smash. There's some really heated battling going on there. There's always at least one of us coming over for some sweet revenge. The wounds of loosing a game cuts deep and it's never forgotten.

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Nintendo's quality

I could have made similar posts about several other Nintendo franchises. They really do have something special going on. I've played pretty much all of the Zelda and Mario games since the SNES era. Every new game in the series always brings something new to the table. Nintendo really knows how to be original.

There's none of them that stick like Mario Kart though. With the Zelda and other Mario games I mostly get them, finish them and then leave them. Mario Kart will always be around. I still play Mario Kart for at least 1 hour every week with my girlfriend. We have some great fun racing against other people online. In fact, when we first got together she bought Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for my birthday including steering wheels. We spent 8 hours straight playing Mario Kart that day. It was part of our early bonding.

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That's it for todays entry. Make sure you keep on following the #retrogamingchallenge to not miss any entries in this great challenge. Both from me and all the other participating Hivers. There's some grand trips down memory lane to be found.

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