The holiday video game release schedule has thrown me way off plan. My "active pile" is currently so stacked that it could easily be mistaken for a lesser man's entire collection. I'm at various stages of completion with Starsky & Hutch, Viewtiful Joe, Return of the King, Mario & Luigi, Mario Party 5, and Double Dash. Not to mention perennial players like DDR, Pokemon Sapphire, Animal Crossing... and the PS2's answer to Nintendo's stranglehold on gimmicky underutilized peripherals, EyeToy. I haven't even started Ratchet & Clank 2 yet.
Being the newest, Double Dash has been getting the majority share of playtime. Rhonda and I have scored gold medals on almost every Cup. The only ones left to conquer are the 100cc and 150 cc tracks of All Cup mode. I just did the 50cc All Cup series tonight, and it was intensely tedious. 16 tracks in a row in 50cc is absurd, since the computer players are so sadly inept. My final score was over 43 minutes of race time, first place in all 16 tracks. Truly an endurance test! Spoiler: You receive NOTHING for getting a gold medal in 50cc All Cup.
Double Dash is great. So great, in fact, that Boris is putting together a special Double Dork review of it... primarily his review of the game with a couple choice inserts from yours truly. DD is a naturally perfect party game, and the inclusion of two-players-in-the-same-kart is typical Nintendo genius. I drive; Rhonda handles the weapons. We both get to play, at our own respective speeds, without resorting to split-screen deathmatching.
Although I can't help feeling that Double Dash could use a whole hell of a lot more. More tracks, more unlockables. DD has 18 characters (I think) and 15 or so karts - which is wonderful - but only 16 tracks. WTF. There's three types of battle modes and five battle arenas (maybe a sixth?), but the battle modes still all slim down to the same thing, attacking others. There's a usual boring Time Trial mode, but who cares, it's all the same tracks without the opponents or in-lane obstacles. (I read in Nintendo Power that you can unlock some creator lap ghosts here, but I haven't figured out how yet.)
Compare that to Super Smash Bros. Melee, a game which amounts to about three times as much stuff. Target Test, custom multi melees, a 1P mode that contains substantially different elements than multiplayer, trophy collecting, picture taking, hidden movies, insane stats keeping, individual player profiles. When I first played SSBM, I thought, "This is where games are going. This generation we'll see games that are so content-packed that you could play them for months and not see it all. Extras and options and menus and presentation and everything." Double Dash lets me down a bit in that regard.
Only 16 tracks. Somebody tell me I just have to flip the disc over to play another 16.
(UPDATE: I was pretty close with the "flip" comment. Mirror Mode!)
