The MarioKart: Source (MKS) team aims to bring the fun and excitement of the Mario Kart series to the PC though the powerful Source engine used in Half Life 2. Their goal is to create the ultimate version of Mario Kart (MK) by combining all of the best aspects into one game. Not by simply recreating one version of MK, but using the best parts of each. MKS will have all of the traditional weapons, characters, and maps but also bring out new weapons that make game-play interesting.

The MKS team has been working hard to make this update for several months, but kept pushing it back as they wanted to add more and more exciting content…and now it is finally here. Here are a few of the highlights of the massive media update.

“So far, we’ve added the classic green shell, red shell, banana, and bomb-omb. These weapons act acording to their usual methods. Green shells travel straight and bounce off walls and obstacles. Red shells seek the closest player, so be careful or you’ll hit yourself if they’re behind youl! Triple shells can act as a shield or a rapid fire weapon. Bananas are slippery and hitting them will cause you to lose control. We’re currently working on adding a feature where you might get a warning before slipping, which will give you enough time to stop and save a balloon. The bomb-omb activates when thrown, walks around idley, then runs after the next player that comes close to him. When he is behind you, an alert comes up at the bottom of the screen to tell you his position and closeness. If he gets into striking distance, the indicator will start flashing.

We’re still figuring out what other weapons to add. Things like ghosts, lightning bolts, and blue shells will definately be added, but we also want to add interesting new weapons that utilize the Source’s physics engine.”

“Our Heads Up Display will include a minimap, spedometer, weapon display, and rear notifier (explained above). The minimap will show all characters on the map with their corresponding icon. It has user defined alpha and zoom settings so you can customize it the way you like. The spedometer… well it’s a spedometer, it shows your speed. When you hit an item box, your weapon choices will scroll and you will be assigned one randomly, much like MK 64.”

“We also have all kinds of exciting maps to play on, plus a little something extra for those community mappers out there we love so much (explained later). All of our maps are constantly being revised and worked on, so those marked with “WIP” (work in progress) are in their very early stages.”

I am already longing for the first public beta of this amazing looking mod.