Help With Mario Kart DS

[Damian Yoshi]

Um... yeah. I'm not too good at racing games, and I can't for the life of me win the 150cc retro grand prix. So... if anyone has any tips, please post.

[UMS Author Lava]

Oh man--I can't even make it past any of the 100cc cups.
Sorry, can't help, but would like tips.

[contention]

I was horrible at the game online against others. Yet when it came to cups I was able for what it seemed to get past them just grandly and usually score an A or B on them if not some number of stars. Don't fret over it either, the higher you go the worse the cups become. The speeds increase as well as the AI of the other drives. Some things I kept in mind throughout these races was making sure not to waste my "ammo" when I was able to collect some. If I found a worthless item I would make sure to get rid of it the second I was able to. Yet, if I could find something useful I would wait until the right chance to release it. Lets say you get some Bananas, (These are usually very weak, meaning un-useful) You can use these to your advantage by letting them trail behind you and getting in front of other drivers. Also, they can act as a shield if anyone is able to shoot a shell at you.

If a Blueshell gets fired at you, you are more-less "screwed". The best thing to do here is to get next to another racer. This way when the shell explodes it will take out the two of you. This can at least give you a bit of advantage to keep them behind you. Lets say that you're first and second is trailing right behind you. If this shell gets fired at you, make sure you slow down enough that the blast will effect you and second place. If you're lucky, you'll be able to pick up enough speed to keep them farther behind you. Other techniques on shielding yourself also follow the "multiple shell scenario". When you pick up a box with three shells, save them unless someone gets in front of you. These to can stop other shells from hitting you and causing you to fall behind. Do make sure that you keep a good eye on them though, you don't want to waste your red ones to much. Don't worry about the green ones though unless you have a good eye, or heck you might just have a way to control your luck.

The last bit of advice I can give you goes on how well you can control your driver. I'm sure you know the technique of power sliding by now. This is simple, all you need to do is break into a skid and press the keys left and right multiple times. Eventually you will begin to spark. If you let go at the same time you start to spark you will give yourself a little boost. These boost can help you get ahead tremendously. However, be careful when using them on courses where the walls and grass cut you off. If done incorrectly you could drive off course slowing yourself down. That's not something you want to do, so keep close attention to how you do it. Only do it on long straight aways or big curves.

There is also the little effect of getting a boost from behind other racers. This method isn't hard in any certain pattern and it can be done if you pay attention to where your opponent moves. If someone is front of you, all you need to do is get right behind them. When doing so, you'll notice wind like burst around your kart. If you do this long enough you will get a pretty powerful burst to get in front of them and win the race. That is of course if your opponent was in second place. Otherwise, you're going to have to keep doing that technique to the best of your advantage.

Oh yes, there is also a certain way to do one more thing in a cheating fashion. In certain tracks there are shortcuts out and about. These are not always hard to spot out. The best place to look for them would be at www.gamefaqs.com. This place can give you information as where you can locate them throughout the tracks. However, most shortcuts require that you have a boost handy in your invetory. You will find that many of them go through grass and water. This will slow down your vehicle unless you have something to get through it with ease. So keep in mind, don't try the shortcuts unless you have a power boost. That's really all I can say over tips and such. Those got me through all the cups, online wise though I couldn't use them to save my life.

[UMS Author Lava]

I do know how to tackle the Missions. I cleared all of them, including bosses.

[Graedius]

Use a light character in a light kart, Primarily Toad, Dry Bones, or Yoshi (In their standard karts, or Dry Bones in the Tank one) and then do as many slide boosts as you can... you'll just destroy everyone.

[UMS Author Lava]

What if they get pushed a lot? That usually causes problems for me.

[Moot]

then don't drive into people

[UMS Author Lava]

Ahahahah...I meant if THEY do the ramming.

[Toshi]

Using the drift boosts on a straight is a little tricky for some players, as sometimes it will make you slide right off the track or into a wall, but it's the best option you have for completing any cups you have difficulty on, but if you cannot do it successfully, don't attempt it, just race as normal, but try this...

Try "jump boosting" (i call it that), while drifting round a corner, perform a drift boost, then once you have boosted, jump immediately into another drift and repeat the process until the bend is over, you can really fly round corners if you manage to do it well. Some guys call it "snaking", but technically, it isn't, as you're not performing an "S" manoeuvre. If possible, try "slipstreaming" as well (i think it's called that), it isn't greatly useful, but it can give you that well needed boost of speed, all you do is race in the line of the racer in front, and after a short while, you'll get a speed boost if you manage to do it successfully, however, it's a bugger when that racer plants a shell/banana/fake box whatever behind him/her, so only do it if you're sure the racer ahead has no items on himself/herself. It is preferred that you choose a light kart as well, the best one to use is Dry Bones' Kart, either his Dry Bomber or his Standard as he has better boosting power than all other drivers.

Anyway, hope it helps in one way or another.

[red.yoshi]

i used Graedius' technique - dry bones and the dry bomber. you win races so easily, its a pushover! this dosent seem to work on wi-fi mode. i lost my mk ds ; ;...

[Rainbow Yoshi]

You lucky people with wi-fi. I've only been able to do it once.

Oh, and another little tip, if you hold A right when the 2 starts to fade at the begining of a race, you'll get a burst of speed...but you probably already knew that.

[Rocky The Yoshi]

Yeah. Like stated before, use all the speed boost you can. That's how I got a star ranking on everything including 150 mirror mode.

[UMS Author Lava]

How do you perform Wi-Fi? I completed all the Grand Prixs. And I got a different title screen. ;D

[contention]

Perform Wi-Fi... Woo, let me tell you it's actually not always easy to set up as you think it is. This all depends whether or not on the connection you have choosing to use throughout your service....

First off, you more less need to go to Wi-Fi settings on your game, and from this place, you'll find a whole bunch of diffrent things that you can choose from and do. To get there, the main screen gives the normal three options. You need to click on Nintendo WFC. I am sure that you knew this though, so go ahead and do that to head onto the next part. After there, go to the bottom option to get your information in. This will take you to a whole new screen that is sort of nice and white in the background, yet there will be two huge options that you can choose from. Of course, what you should do is go ahead and choose the blue one. This of course saying "Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection Settings".

After there you'll come up to three more options, these are all the connection points you can choose to play your game from. You can choose any of these, go ahead and do number one though. That way you don't get yourself to confused as to why all the others are empty. After there, you'll get three more options. These give you the ability to Search for an Acess Point from your internet wireless router. The AOSS I believe is the access point you can pick up at your local McDonalds. This of course would be the easiest option, but you likely don't want to drive to one of those each time to play the game. So if all else fails with these options, you have to go to the third one which is Manual Options. This is where you are going to enter a little bit of more complicated steps.

Now, if your system wasn't able to pick up an access point you're going to have to find out why. Chances may be that its password protected or just not able to be shown for some reason. This happened on mine, and once you enter the manual set up screen you'll come to many options. This would be the best time to resort to a parent. Unless of course, you know where all the information can be found in your router. These options to fill out include SSID, WEP Key, IP Adress, Subnet Mask, Gateway, Primary DNS, and Secondary DNS. If you know only a few of these, such as already knowing your IP adress and your SSID and such then you should be ok. As mine only knows the SSID and the WEP Key and it was able to find our wireless network. Each router may work a bit diffrently so thats all up to you.

After this is done, you will be able to play WFC by merely going to the screen where you can. It will then connect to your router. Some routers are good and will go far, other ones will make you be closer than you think to the main source. You might want to test this out sometimes to see what happens. I found this out by playing in my room one night. It seemed to take forever for players to enter the match. This was because the connection could not process fast enough and eventually was causing me lag. That's really all you can do through these things.

[squishyoshi]

The WI FI on MKDS is great. I have my own WI FI details, click on my 'WI FI click here' sig bar and feel free to add me on MKDS too! Like I said please PM me your friend code if you add me!

[Damian Yoshi]

I don't have any way of connecting to wi-fi... I'd like to give it a try though.

[Rainbow Yoshi]

No! Now I really wish I had wi fi since I have a two star ranking (or better ^^) on every grand prix. So, I need to show them off to the world! Despite the loss of my hand-eye coordination, I'm still pretty talented at painting words onto grains of rice.