Atari Karts (Atari Jaguar)

https://darth-azrael.tumblr.com/post/184650180379/kinsie-ahh-atari-karts-featuring-such-beloved

Atari Karts, as you can probably tell from the name, is a Kart racing game. It was released for the Atari Jaguar in 1995 and is clearly influenced by and similar to Super Mario Kart which had been released a few years before on the Super Nintendo. Atari Karts isn’t the most original name in the world but Atari didn’t really have an identifiable mascot like Mario.

Atari Karts received mixed reviews but it isn’t a bad game. The controls and graphics were both good. However, the tracks really aren’t diverse enough and neither are the power-ups. Also, the enemy AI tends to be a little too perfect. However, this is still a fun kart racer and if you are looking for such a game on the Jaguar, this is pretty much your only choice. It’s a title worth having if you own a Jaguar.

While there was basically only one single-player game-play mode, it didn’t offer a couple of unique features. For instance, when winning one of the cups, you could then race a ‘boss’ one-on-one. If you defeated them then they became a playable character. Like Super Mario Kart, Atari Karts also had a two-player split-screen mode.

Hopefully, Atari will choose to re-release games like this on their upcoming Atari VCS but for now there’s no other way to play it other than on a Jaguar or via emulation. Unfortunately, this must be one of the rarer games for the Jaguar as prices are quite high on eBay. There were never any direct sequels to Atari Karts but the developer did go on to develop other kart racing games for other systems including Merlin Racing for the Nuon and Rascal Racers for the PlayStation. If there had been sequels, they probably would have been very much like these.