If you’ve played any version of Mario Kart since its jump to the N64 and all the way up through its latest portable iteration then you know exactly what we’re talking about. That’s right, ’snaking’. Now let the debates begin - is it cheating or an honest technique? Did the designers put the ability to ’snake’ in each game intentionally or was it simply an oversight… that happened three times in a row.

If you’re not familiar with exactly what “snaking” is, let me enlighten you. It’s a type of technique, glitch, cheat (take your pick) that is achieved by continually hopping your cart from side to side, which creates a seemingly endless supply of powerslide boost. Especially skilled players can use this method without stopping for an entire race, effectively giving them an insurmountable lead. If you’ve ever had to play against someone who was using this technique while you were attempting to race in the traditional fashion you’ll truly have an appreciation for how frustrating is it.

This has been exploited to the extreme in the DS version particularly and that’s where ’snakers’ might have ruined it for themselves. It seems Nintendo has taken notice of the number of complaints from players who have witnessed this occurrence first hand and they have made the decision to prevent it from being used in their upcoming Kart outing for the Wii. In a recent review of the game by the Official Nintendo Magazine (UK) they made the discovery during their play time and found, “…that your speed boost is determined by how long you can hold the slide.”

Goodbye and good riddance I say. That joy may be short lived however, as I’m sure right now there’s someone working on a different way to exploit one of the games features as we speak… /*cue doom and gloom music*/