Some exciting details regarding the hotly anticipated kart racer...

A recent interview with Mario Kart DS producer Hideki Konno has reaped some exciting new details on everyone's favorite kart-racing series. For starters, the game will feature at least 30 tracks, about half of which are new to the game and the other half being carefully selected favorites from all the past Mario Karts. Multiplayer race modes will support 8 racers in LAN (local network) and 4 players over the internet via Nintendo WiFi (set to debut later this year.)

Those details, of course, we already knew. However, the now verified inclusion of Battle mode support over the internet will give kart combatants reason to cheer (co-op modes were, unfortuneately, ruled out.) Also, in a welcome series first, players will be able to select the same character with distinguishing marks coming from color differences and the displayed name of the racer.

In regards to some of the items being considered, fans of the SNES original will be keeping their fingers crossed with the news that the team is giving strong consideration to bringing back the feather (allowed karts to hop.) Additionally, an example of DS-specific items planned involves a balloon that the racer can inflate by blowing into the microphone (to what end, we can thus far only speculate.)

Finally, Konno promised beefed up AI for single-player cups and remarked on several intriguing touch screen extras that will be offered. Besides the use of the second screen as an in-race map, optional touch screen controls (hopefully better implemented than in NST's Ridge Racer) and the ability to utilize a small paint program to create custom user decals will be made available. Whether or not these user-created kart decals can be shared over the WiFi network is yet unknown, however the new touches make this indeed the most personalized Mario Kart ever.

Keep your eyes on the road for more details and hopefully impressions as soon as they are available. Mario Kart DS is currently on track to take to the streets later this year.