Super Mario Kart

Super Mario Kart is a kart racing game developed and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, released in Japan in August 1992 and in North America and Europe later the same year. Developed by Nintendo EAD, it was the first entry in what would become the long-running Mario Kart series, and it established the template the franchise has followed ever since: recognizable characters from the Mario universe, weaponized item pickups, and tightly designed circuits built for repeat play. The game uses the SNES's Mode 7 graphics to fake a rolling pseudo-3D track, the same technique that powered F-Zero a year earlier. Eight drivers from the Mario cast each handle differently, split between Grand Prix cups raced against the AI, solo Time Trials, and a one-on-one Battle Mode fought in walled arenas with balloons. Its defining feature is the permanent split screen: the bottom half of the display always shows a map or a second player, so two people can race head to head on the same television. Items such as the green and red shells, banana peels, and the lightning bolt let a trailing racer claw back a lead, a rubber-banding idea of fairness that has defined the series and made it a fixture of living-room multiplayer. Critically and commercially successful, Super Mario Kart sold around eight million copies and spawned sequels on every Nintendo platform since. It is frequently cited among the most important and influential video games ever made, and remains a touchstone for accessible, competitive multiplayer.