Snakers Bite...

 (An old write up I dug up from '07, back when Mario Kart DS was all the rage)

Many of you are aware of the DS cart racer known as Mario Kart DS. Now this game is freakin’ AWESOME, second only to Mario Kart 64 on the great Mario Kart Totem Pole. But that is besides the point… I am here to point out my major beef with this otherwise excellent game, and it is nothing Nintendo has done necessarily…

Unfortunately, these sneaky little vermin bastards known as “snakers” frequently slither there way into a cheap and undeserved victory when racing online. What are snakers you ask? Good question my poor oblivious reader!

Don't be one of these. They are cheap as hell.

Snakers are people who exploit the “powerslide” move by making extremely quick, sporatic tapping of the left and right buttons on the D-pad while holding the R button (which causes you to drift). Now there’s nothing wrong with POWER SLIDING. It’s a perfectly normal and legal function in the game. Power sliding is nothing more than receiving an extra speed boost after you drift through a sharp turn while tapping left and right quickly.
However, this sadly isn’t enough for some people. Some people take this a step further and constantly hold R, so they basically make a weaving path, all the while continuoutly giving themselves arthritis by constantly alternating pressing the left and right buttons as fast as possible. When pulled off correctly, the player basically gets constant boosts. You can already see how this can be frusterating as hell and will make you want to throw your DS up against a brick wall when playing these annoying scum online.

Oh Mario Kart DS, why must your greatness be tainted by humans online?

I admit, I have been guilty at attempting the art of snaking. Though I promptly quit for a few key reasons: One of them being I sucked at it. Also, I found that this just kills my thumb, and I feel like injuring one’s self is sort of counterproductive the relaxing, easy going nature of playing games. Third, it’s simply not fair to those poor nOObs who suck. Many will get frustrated and disconnect (don’t get me wrong, I HATE those people as well, but that’s another story..). So why should I cause players to quit in frustration? It sure doesn’t make the game fun for me. Now I only snake when everybody else I’m racing does (and believe me, it does happen), and even then I struggle to keep up. . It just sucks that I have to practically break my damn thumb to I figure I may as well level the playing field so-to-speak.


Now here are the key reasons as to why I absolutely hate snakers:

1. They act like they are extremely talented, and everyone else playing fairly just sucks at the game.
- WRONG: Having a quick left thumb does NOT make you talented, nor does it make you genuinely good at Mario Kart DS. It simply means that, well, you have a quick thumb.

2. You have absolutely NO chance of beating them if you don’t know how to snake, or refuse to.
- Little Johnny is a nOOb and although he has finished the single player mode, he wants to expand his horizons and play online. The poor kid basically will have NO chance of winning when going up against these heartless snakers.

3. Snakers argue that, “Well it’s perfectly fair.. ANYONE can do it. It’s not my problem that you can’t.”
- Sure, numbnuts. I suppose anyone can also rob a convenient store if they really wanted to. But it doesn’t mean you SHOULD do it.. So why should every Mario Kart player who wants a fair race online be forced to exploit the system and snake the entire time they’re playing? Just because you want arthritis, doesn’t mean everyone does.

4. They claim they’re not cheating, since the game allows it.
- Yeah.. You’re not “cheating,” as in like.. entering a cheat code, or hacking into a game of Counter-Strike. You ARE however, exploiting the control system to your advantage, so you are being extremely CHEAP.

5. They cause teh noobs to disconnect during an online game.
- I’m really part the worst group of people who gets screwed over the most when I try to play this game online. I’m pretty decent at the game. Not outstanding or cheap where I always win, but not terrible where I come in last all the time and quit because of it. I’m right in the middle. So I get the luxury of having to deal with both the snakers (who are impossible to beat), and the disconnecters (whom I can never earn points from because they always leave). So by the final race, I am usually left with 1 or 2 snakers, while the 3rd person has left in frustration because they suck… Just great. Now lost my one point I would have earned against the nOOb, and now have no chance of beating the other 2 racers.

So to sum up, snakers suck ass. They are insecure that god forbid they might actually LOSE at something, so they must exploit the control system to secure their cheap win. There, that’s the end of my rant. This is an excellent game, the online just gets ruined sometimes between the disconnectors and the snakers. If you wish to venture online, be warned, the snakers are relentless, and may bring you unwarranted hatred towards an otherwise stellar game.