Mario Kart: Double Dash!! - Two vs. Two Team Versus Mode

This is a capture of me and three other people playing the team Versus Mode in Mario Kart: Double Dash!! for the GameCube. This was recorded directly from the GameCube (not the Wii) in progressive scan mode. I'm player one, Bait is player two, Keet is player three, and Dawn is player four.

Following our Bob-omb Blast jaunt, Keet, Bait, Dawn and I squared off again, this time with some team racing. One of Double Dash’s unique features is its team-based kart design. Instead of having each player control his own kart, you can have two people controlling the same kart with one player driving and the other player controlling items. This was one of Nintendo’s more brilliant ideas because it allowed less-experienced Mario Kart fans to still enjoy the game without the frustration of learning the physics and courses.

Keet’s channel: https://www.youtube.com/@KeetAndBait

I received Double Dash for Christmas of 2003 and ended up playing the game quite a bit with my friend Luke, as well as any of his family members or friends who were available. My other friend Drew would also frequently play the Grand Prix with me using the aforementioned team mode.

In the team mode, the first and third players act as the drivers by default, and the second and fourth players act as the gunners by throwing items. The gunners can also do a slide attack with the L and R buttons to slam nearby racers, and when the driver is drifting, the gunner is responsible for wiggling the analog stick left and right to build up a mini turbo, which allows the driver to focus more on just steering. The driver and gunner can swap places at any time if they both press the Z button, and we actually tried that briefly in one of the later races before quickly switching back. Also, if both the driver and the gunner perform a rocket start, they’ll get the max-boost start, known as a Double Dash (signified by the blue exhaust at the beginning).

Bait acted as my gunner, and Dawn acted as Keet’s gunner, which worked out perfectly since Keet and I were still quite familiar with the courses (though just a tad rusty). Bait landed quite a few slide attacks, which was impressive, but Dawn had some devastating items drops of her own. Unfortunately, I quickly realized that the different characters are not at all balanced for Versus Mode because of their unique special items. Toad and Toadette both get the Super Mushroom, which completely outclasses Luigi’s fireballs and Yoshi’s egg. As a result, Bait and I basically got clobbered. Perhaps if we had used Baby Luigi, we might have done better. In any event, this was a lot of fun.

Normally I would record the system’s boot-up screen, but the HD PVR 2 has trouble doing that, especially with the scan conversion. So once I activated progressive scan mode and started recording, I simply hit the reset button.

Recorded with the Hauppauge HD PVR 2 and the GameCube's component cables at 60 frames per second.