Mario Kart 64

Mario Kart 64 is a 1996 kart racing game for the Nintendo 64 (N64). Developed and published by Nintendo, it is the second installment in the Mario Kart series after 1992's Super Mario Kart. The game retains the gameplay of its predecessor: the player, controlling a Mario franchise character, races opponents around tracks based on locales from the Super Mario platform games. Tracks contain obstacles to slow the player down and item boxes which give the player power-ups to aid in their progress. Mario Kart 64 contains different single-player and local multiplayer game modes, including a Grand Prix racing mode and a last man standing battle mode.

Mario Kart 64 was first revealed in 1995 alongside the N64. The development team focused on best utilising the console's technology for smooth gameplay, rather than innovating significantly on its predecessor, in order to appeal to a wide audience. Developers were bounded by the N64's processing power and made use of rendering techniques to save on memory, and used car physics simulations to aid the game's kart design. Mario Kart 64 was released in late 1996 in Japan and in 1997 worldwide, months after the launch of the N64.

Mario Kart 64 was received positively by critics. The track designs, multiplayer, and presentation were lauded, while criticism was directed towards its technical issues and difficulty. The game sold 9.87 million copies worldwide, making it the second-best-selling N64 game. Mario Kart 64 was nominated for awards following its release, and retrospectively has been considered one of the greatest video games of all time. The game has a notable speedrunning presence online. Mario Kart 64 was rereleased digitally for the Virtual Console line on the Wii in 2007 and the Wii U in 2016, and for the Nintendo Classics service in 2021.

Mario Kart 64 is a kart racing video game featuring characters and elements from the Mario franchise largely similar in gameplay to its predecessor Super Mario Kart (1992). The player controls one of eight Mario franchise characters and races opponents in karts around tracks based on locales from the Super Mario platform games. The game's 20 courses are populated with obstacles to slow the player down, shortcuts letting the player skip sections, and boxes labeled with question marks which give the player a random item based on elements from the Super Mario series. Items can be either power-ups, such as giving the player a speed boost, or offensive, such as causing an opponent to spin out. The player can also drift around corners or enter an opponent's slipstream to receive a speed boost. Playable characters are divided into three weight classes which determine characteristics such as speed, acceleration, and handling. Princess Peach, Toad, and Yoshi are lightweights; Luigi and Mario are middleweights; and Bowser, Donkey Kong, and Wario are heavyweights. There are three difficulty levels based on engine classes—50cc, 100cc, or 150cc—with the harder difficulties' more powerful engine classes providing increased maximum speeds and control difficulty.

There are two single-player game mode options in Mario Kart 64: Grand Prix (GP) and Time Trials. Time Trials is a solely single-player mode, and GP can be played in single-player or with two players. In GP, the game's main mode, the player races seven computer opponents (or six if playing in two-player mode) in one of four "cups" consisting of four tracks, with the objective of achieving the highest points across all four three-lap races. The player must race on every track in the cup, and points are given out at the end of each race based on position—nine for first place, six for second, three for third, and one for fourth. The player must come in at least fourth place in each race to continue racing for a trophy. Achieving the maximum number of points (i.e., winning all four races) on all cups in the 150cc difficulty unlocks a "mirror" mode in which all tracks are flipped left-to-right. In Time Trials, the player races on any of the 16 tracks with the aim of achieving the lowest time across three laps. There are no opponents or items on the track; the player is given three speed boosts to use across the whole race. The player can race against another player's time by sharing "ghost" data using the Controller Pak, a memory card that plugs into the back of the Nintendo 64 (N64) controller.

Three local multiplayer modes are present in Mario Kart 64: GP, Versus (VS), and Battle. The game utilises a split screen to display each player's gameplay. GP is unchanged from its single-player version, but allows for two players. In VS mode, two to four players race around any track without computer opponents. Battle mode sees two to four players compete in one of four arenas rather than tracks. The player begins with three balloons over their character, with the objective of popping other players' balloons using items. Players are knocked out upon losing all their balloons—though can control a bomb with wheels to attack remaining players afterwards—and the winner is whoever remains the last man standing.

The game was provisionally titled Super Mario Kart R during development—the "R" being short for "rendered". Mario Kart 64 was developed concurrently with Super Mario 64 (1996) and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) by Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis & Development division. The game was revealed alongside the N64 console itself in November 1995 at the Shoshinkai trade show via a videotape given out to journalists. The game was reportedly considered "95% complete" at the time of the show. Mario Kart 64 was intended to be released alongside the N64 itself in mid-1996 but was delayed after development resources were directed towards Super Mario 64, itself a launch title for the system.

Developers did not focus on innovating significantly on the gameplay of its predecessor Super Mario Kart, intending for the game to appeal to a wide audience. Nintendo instead focused on the game's use of technology and internal processes through using the full extent of the N64's processing capabilities, especially in regards to the performance of multiplayer gameplay. Hideki Konno, the director of Mario Kart 64, stated that developers wanted a racing environment in the game where all players were "in it until the end". Konno claimed that they were not able to achieve this in part due to the processing capabilities of the N64 not allowing eight players on the screen at all times. Developers created a simulation of remote-controlled vehicles and did research on the physics of cars to aid in designing the game's kart mechanics. Ultimately, it was decided the gameplay derived from this research was too "realistic" and unenjoyable for game testers, and developers settled on a more straightforward approach to controls in the final release. Game designers wanted freedom in regards to where the player can race on tracks. This caused programmers to struggle with collision detection, trying to find a balance between not overloading the processor and not wanting to cut corners such as by letting players overlap each other.