Earlier today Nintendo held a "Gamer's Summit" in San Francisco, CA for the US Press. Today, the first of the two day event, Nintendo focused on its upcoming first-party games. Tomorrow third-party publishers will get the chance to showcase their upcoming games. Along with an updated version of 1080:avalanche, a near complete version of Mario Kart: Double Dash was on display

Compared to the E3 build of the game this version was much closer to completion and gave a very realistic impression of how the final build will play. The reported speed problems are the most noticable change with the game running a lot faster than previously.

Game Features

-One of the most popular games franchises ever -- new and improved for GameCube
-Huge cast of mascot characters including Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, Wario, and many more
-Two-player per kart dynamic: switch to hold more items than before
-Character-specific power-ups; Yoshi rolls his egg, Wario can toss bombs, and the whole cast has new tricks
-Several modes of gameplay: Grand Prix, Time Trials, and Battle
-Multiplayer mayhem -- one to four-player Battles and regular races; plus, two-player cooperative support for Grand Prix!
-LAN play lets you use an Ethernet cable to link two to eight GameCubes on separate TVs
-Supports Logitech steering wheel controller
-Progressive scan supported
-Pro Logic II enabled

A number of new features were revealed at the event. Three new Grand Prx cups will be available to the player and there will be three varieties of the popular Battle mode.

Nintendo stated that there will be many unlockable secrets present in the game which of course were being kept under wraps for the time being. At the event there were 12 tracks available to play spread over 3 cups. They were the following:

Mushroom Cup
Mushroom Cup
Luigi Circuit
Baby Park
Dry Dry Desert

Flower Cup
Mushroom Bridge
Mario Circuit
Daisy Cruise
Waluigi Stadium

Star Cup
Sherbert Lane
Mushroom City
Yoshi Circuit
DK Mountain

Current reports show that all of the tracks had the style expected of a Mario Kart game, and each brought something new to the game and tested the player in a unique way. Of note was the very unique experience of the Daisy Cruise, set up around the edge of a huge cruise liner!

The classic Mario Kart shortcuts were also in with the design, from using a turbo over a rough patch of grass to finding a secret path for an advantage. Track design was definately up to the standards of previous titles, thats for sure.

There will also be a brand new co-op Grand Prix mode. With players taking control of one character each and sharing the same cart. One player takes control of the driving while the other one looks after the attacking of other players. Thats not all though, to powerslide players must co-operate even more. The driver activates the slide with L or R while the passenger must wiggle their stick to activate the speed boost. To swap seats players must verbally agree to change and hit the Z button together. Sounds like a lot of fun, especially if you've got 16 people in the same room all shouting tactics with their partners.

Battle mode has been vastly improved with two all new modes added to the original. Along with "Balloon Battle" players can now choose from "Shine Thief" and "Bob-omb Blast". The first, Balloon Battle, is the standard mode as seen in all previous games, nothing new there. Shine Thief sees players fighting over ownership of a Shine-Sprite as seen in Mario Sunshine, the last player in possesion of it wins - Much like the Flag-Tag modes in many FPS games. Bob-omb Blast has players racing around trying to collect up Bob-ombs that are spread around the arenas and firing them at oponents. Each time you hit someone you fill a star tank and each time you are hit one of your star tanks is emptied. The aim of the game is to be the first to fill a set number of tanks.

Those lucky enough to be at the event have reported that this is how Mario Kart is meant to be. Gone are the speed problems of the E3 build, the tracks are looking fantastic and to top it off we've got some crazy new modes. The game is running at 60 frames per second in 1 player mode and 30 in multiplayer and is incredibly stable. It has incredible draw distances and uses the same type of blur effects seen in Super Mario Sunshine.

Come release people should have a lot to do, with the new modes announced and the promise of many unlockable secrets it will keep you going for ages after you buy it. A must have for Christmas we reckon.