One thing my group talked about on Wednesday was how unique of a “cooperative” experience Mario Kart is. While the game is multiplayer, almost every set up mechanic and procedure in the game is geared towards competition instead of cooperation.
So the biggest observation is just the fact that in all of these races it’s purely every player for themselves – and all items either directly influence other players in adverse ways or put you ahead of them. Time to complete the run does not matter absolutely, but rather relatively to other racers. Very importantly, even in the cooperative modes (where there are multiple teams) there is actually no way to help your team members out. The only way to support the win of the team is to do as well as you can, by yourself. So even “team play” in Mario Kart is inherently isolationist and depends on competition. Even in other games based solely around conflict and competition, like Super Smash Bros, team play can be extremely cooperative, and players can work together towards goals.
We were thinking that maybe this was the reason that Mario Kart doesn’t have a campaign mode – isn’t that a little weird? Many multiplayer games have some sort of campaign mode (like the way Smash does). Essentially there is almost no way to play Mario Kart alone – yes you can practice against computers but that’s merely substituting players with other worse “players”. The only sense of progression is collecting stars for each cup, which is based on how many points you can accumulate in given speeds (so essentially, 0 story or arc related to this progress).
It makes more sense why, growing up, Mario Kart was one of the most divisive gameplay experiences (besides maybe Mario Party or Monopoly). I’m sure a lot of people can recall playing Mario Kart with a room full of friends during their childhood, hanging off the edge of the seat desperately trying to secure the 2nd place they need for the win (maybe fouled by the red shell your other friend throws at you). Mario Kart is inherently one of the most competitive games out there, and it’s very apparent in both how we play the game with others, as well as the procedural rhetoric of its gameplay.