I've been able to play regionally, but not with people on my friends list. I'm not sure what the problem is yet :(

My friend code:

292117
258245

I added everyone who already posted. I probably won't be on much until this weekend, though.

Friend code is

472505
899175

if you happen to find me, please dont quit mid race. That's been happening to me since launch day its beginning to piss me off! :) I look forward to racing some of you! :D

Tell me about it. I'm going to spend some time today putting in all the friend codes here and looking only for DVD Talkers to race. I have yet to complete even 10% of the races I have been a part of. 9 times out of 10 some one will get ahead and one of the people will drop ending the race. I don't know if it gives the dropping person a loss, but it doesn't count the drops separately so you have no way of knowing ahead of time. It certainly doesn't give you the win when you are ahead which really sucks. The fact you have to play 4 races just increases the drops because once people come in 3rd or 4th in the first race they don't want to do the other races.

To say the least the Mario Kart online experience is probably the worst of any I have tried. By not punishing the droppers Nintendo has made racing random people completely pointless.

hmmm all this bad talk about the online part of the game has dropped my DS buy level to must buy to wait to see what the next color bundle will be first.

What about the lan play? If I have my info right you can play other people with just one game, is this correct? What is the max distance you can be in order for this work?

Correct, up to 4 people can play with only 1 MK cart. You use the DS Download play option when you first start the DS. I believe that the max distance is around 25' but I would have to check to be sure.

I am bummed that there is no battle mode via WiFi. Battle mode was the best part of multiplayer MK.

But remember. If I am not mistaken all of the software is on the game itself. So with future games they may be able to add different features to the Wifi.

Nevertheless with your experiences, I'm not sure if I will let anyone into my Animal Crossing town.

Guess I won't even bother with this game then, as the online gaming was my main interest.

I've always hated online gaming for things like the fucking quitters, but hoped it would be better this time with the DS. But I guess it was foolish to expect it given probably at least 50% of DS owners are probably under 15.

Racing with friends is fun, but it's such a pain to find them and connect since you don't know who's online. No voice chat sucks either.

The single player is still fun, lots of replay value.

I honestly don't have much interest in the single player mode anymore, after playing the previous 4 incarnations to death.

I recommend that you not purchase the game then.

I already crossed it off my list after reading darksides complaints.

Too many fresh games like Trauma Center and Phoenix Wright that I could pick up instead of playing a game I've essentially played 4 times already.

One thing to note: I think the further you get in the single player mode and the more stuff you unlock the better the online competition will be. I'm spending some time now trying to clear a lot of the single player mode stuff so hopefully I can connect to some of the better players and not the little kids that drop as soon as they fall behind.

This is really a good game and people dropping was something I dealt with playing basketball online as well. At least with the console online they tracked the players drops and you could avoid the people with a ton of drops on their record.

I hate to bash the game for some of the online players being aholes, because that is a fact of life with all online gaming. This is a great little racing game overall.

I guess I've just been pretty lucky so far. I'd say that I've got to finish (win or lose)about 80% of my online games. BTW, playing with DVDtalkers is definately the way to go, it's true for xbox live, and and the same for Nintendo online.

Is there a website, that shows how to unlock new characters, yet?

They are all unlockable by beating the Grand Prix. I unlocked two by beating everything on the 50cc Cup and now I'm working on the 100cc.

I have 2 rain checks for Fry's $24.99 price. The IGN review said that single cart multiplayer is limited in tracks and characters, is that true? Should I go ahead and get both games to get the full multiplayer experience?

Single Cart multi-player is limited to 8 tracks, and everyone plays as shy guy.

I'm just getting my wireless network set up, but here's my friend code:

476800
910983

Well after hours of trial and error and nearly giving up several times, I finally got WFC to work through my PCI WiFi card. If anyone here bought a RAlink WiFi card just so they could play some of the E3 demos, you CAN use it for DS WiFi, I'm living proof.

Anyhow, my friend code:

098843
839444

Looking forward to racing you all online. I'm already sick of racing random people because they all quit mid-race...very annoying. I'd expect DVDTalkers are a little more civilized.

I actually finished a race today. I lost, but three of us stayed in. One person dropped out on the second track but it let us finish.

My one big problem with this version compared to the N64 version I was really good at is the power slides. I could pull them off effortlessly all over the place with the analog, but I'm really struggling with the digital pad. Some of the guys out there slide the entire race and are impossible to beat. I'm going to keep working on it. I'm working on the 100cc tracks right now on single player mode and have gotten much better.

Solid game overall and even if you bypass the online its still a great single player game. I'm hoping to link up with some people directly to play the battle modes.

I'm also working on the 100cc class right now, I've been only one point shy of passing to 150cc class.

Other than the slight finger cramps, I can't reccomend this game high enough.

goLUCKY, I was thinking about starting up a 1&O Nintendo Wifi friend code thread for this and upcoming games, but didn't want to steal your thunder. If you'd rather do one yourself, that's cool. I think it'd be a good idea to include the nickname that people use as well, since the friend code doesn't show up in the friends list once you connect to the friend the first time. I'm pretty sure I entered everybody's code into my list, but I can't double check easily.

Just let me know :)

loving this game so far. hands down one of my favorite games so far this year. so much fun.

I'm starting to really hate people who are disconnecting once they are losing via Wi-Fi. Hell I've played some people with 4-11 records. Just take the loss! :)

I was reading on another forum that it does give you a loss if you disconnect. I raced someone tonight and we finished all four tracks. I won three of the four tracks and ended up getting 2 wins in my record at the end. Why 2? I really don't get the Wi-Fi scoring.

Got a chance to check out the local wireless stuff tonight. :thumbsup:

The balloon inflation bit got old real fast, but the Shine mode was a lot of fun. The GP races were smooth as could be, too. Games were almost instant with multi-cart play.

You guys aren't kidding about the idiots online. The stats matter even less than the meaningless Xbox Live stats and people still quit. I'm going to stick to DVDTalkers and people I know as much as possible.

I picked this up yesterday and am loving it so far. How do you create a "friend number"? I didn't attempt to get online yet as I wanted to "hone" my skills first, but I was able to hook it up to my netgear without any issues.

Care to detail how you got it to work? I was trying the same thing last night for a few hours and never was able to connect.

I find it amusing that I'm unable to get my wireless connection to work with my DS, while my neighbors have a much faster internet connection and an unsecured wireless access point and I can use that with no trouble at all, even though I'm sure they'd rather not have people using it.

You'll get a friend code automatically assigned to you the first time you connect.

:D Go ahead and start a Nintendo WFC thread, with my blessings. :D
here's the code so far. Just cut and paste into a new thead.


IMO, nicknames are not very important, because they can be changed between online sessions.

This is why I generally hate the powerslide mini-turbo mechanic. A nice gameplay feature in theory, but a skilled player in the n64 version could literally powerslide turbo 100% of the time on some tracks. Greatly prefer the SNES and GBA version of sliding over the mini-turbo.

Here's my friend code folks:

219102
893750

The scoring works like this:

If they're are 4 players and you get 1st place, you would get 3 wins. 2nd place would get 2 wins and 1 loss and so on. 4th place would get 3 losses and 0 wins.

I've unlocked

so far, who have you unlocked.

Yea, here's a quick overview:

First, this only works with Wifi cards that have the Ralink chipset. There's a list of most the major brand cards here.
EDIT: Somebody's claiming in another forum that he got it to work with a non-Ralink card by using just the Gigabyte software with the cards own drivers. YMMV.

Next, you have to download and install this Gigabyte driver/software bundle. It works with any wifi card using the Ralink chipset. What sets it apart is it has a softAP mode (software Access Point). It more or less makes your wifi card into a wireless router.

Once you've installed that, go into your Network Connections settings (Start > Control Panel > Network Connections). There should be two items in there: Your wired/interent network and your wireless network card. Hold down the CTRL key and click them both to highlight them, then right click on one of them and select "Bridge connections". If it won't let you do it, un-highlight them both and try right-clicking on just your wired/interenet connection and under the Advanced tab UNCHECK the box next to "Allow other network users to connect through this computer's internet connection" then try bridging them again. You should now have THREE items in your Network Connections window: wired, wireless, and bridged.

Finally, in your lower right taskbar there should be an icon for the Gigabyte software. Right click it and select the AP option. Select 802.11 B Only. Other than that everything else should be ok to leave at their default settings. The "Auth vs. Securuty" button is where you can set up WEP but I coudn't get it to work for some reason. Best to leave it off until you get your DS online anyway.

Now just start up Mario Kart and try the "Automatically connect" option and it should connect all by itself.

Thanks for explaining this it was driving me crazy.

anyone try using the thumb pad? how's the control?

Control is excellent for 3D driving with a digital pad. The control is very tight. I find the power boost slides tougher than the N64 version which to me makes this a much harder Mario Kart than the N64 and Cube version. That might just be me though.

Finally got mine to work!!!!

My friend code is...
077369
097723

Is it possible to do battle mode on the WiFi connection? It seems to always dump me into a Grand Prix.

Grand Prix only.

So where's your friend code?