Sega and Nintendo knocked our socks off with F-Zero AX, the Triforce arcade version of F-Zero GX for the GameCube. The Triforce arcade hardware was co-developed by Namco as well, and we now know what they've been cooking up for the arcades. Mario Kart Arcade GP promises to bring the fast and furious action that we all loved with Mario Kart on the home consoles. Here's all that we know about the game.

With the move to arcades, gameplay isn't limited to a controller anymore. The cabinet features a steering wheel, gas and brake pedals, and the all-important item launcher button mounted on the steering wheel. The basic karting control is about the same as it was in the SNES days, wherein hitting both the gas and the brake at the same time will cause the kart to hop into the air, and turning while airborne will start a powerslide, which increases speeds through turns. The weapon system isn't as simple as hitting the button and letting rip, since Arcade GP requires that the player actually aims where they want to launch weapons with on-screen crosshairs. Homing items must get a lock with these crosshairs before a hit is guaranteed, which means aiming skills will be just as important as driving skills.

Another feature the cabinet will have is a camera mounted directly in front of the player. Namco's NamCam2 system takes a picture of whomever sits in the driver's seat, then adds stickers or decals on top of it to resemble the character that player picked. This will help pick out who is who, especially since up to four players can all select the same character if they want, a Mario Kart first. As Namco is developing the game for the arcades, they've decided to throw in a few of their own characters into the Mario Kart world. Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man and Blinky the ghost will be selectable characters, along with eight of Nintendo's usual suspects, Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, Yoshi, Bowser, Donkey Kong and Wario. It's currently unknown if there are any secret characters buried inside, but Namco is notorious for having time-released goodies in their arcade games, so maybe there will be a few surprises.

Right now, 24 tracks are confirmed to be in the game, and many have selectable weather conditions. Players can select from one of six cups, each with four tracks a piece: The Mario Cup, the Koopa Cup, the DK Cup, the Wario Cup, the Rainbow Cup, and Namco's Pac-Man cup. Tracks are designed to be fast, and races are long enough for those who fall behind to catch up with solid driving and useful items. In fact, Namco has created what they call the "Rubber Band System," where players that do fall behind will find it easier to get back to the front, making sure the racing action is close all the way through. The courses will be littered with item boxes, coins to increase top speed (as in Super Mario Kart), and all the junk the other players will throw onto the track in an attempt to slow you down.

The most radical addition to Mario Kart Arcade GP are the new items you can acquire via the item boxes. Over 100(!) wacky and wild Namco creations can eventually be earned and then used during the races. In addition to the regular koopa shells, banana peels and Super Stars we've been seeing for years, new items include a tornado that clears out everything in its path, marbles and oil slicks that can be used to spin out those behind, and some sort of club melee weapon, which just beats the crap out of anyone that gets close to you. Other weapons will slow down the target with a purple haze, or effect your camera view with smoke bombs or a pie that splatters all over the camera. Not all of the items are going to be available from the start, however.

The game uses a magnetic card system to save data, similar to the cards dispensed by F-Zero AX. The cards track player records, times, coins, and most importantly, items unlocked. As you progress through the game and improve, more and more items will be available to the player, but still not all at the same time. Before every race, a slot machine of sorts randomly selects three items from your unlocked list, and then those items will be the ones you can use during the course of the next race. Since you really don't know which items you'll have access to until just before the start of the race, you might need to adjust your driving tactics based on the tools you've got. Driving through item boxes will still get you something random from your available set of items.

With the game running on the Triforce hardware, things look great. Gameplay is reported to be fast at all times, even in some of the tracks with a lot of stuff going on in the background. All the characters look really good, especially since there's only one of them per kart, rather than two in Double Dash, meaning more detail can be put into one driver. Since arcade monitors are high-resolution, everything in general will look better than any other Mario Kart game ever.

Mario Kart Arcade GP was just announced for Japanese arcades this weekend at the Arcade Operator's Union show in Japan, so there hasn't been any official word yet that the game will be available in North America or elsewhere. Considering that Nintendo had planned from the beginning to get F-Zero AX out here to coincide with the GameCube version of F-Zero, it wouldn't be too hard to imagine a U.S. release for the arcade version of Kart to come about. This does bring up another question, though: Since there was a home-arcade tie between the F-Zero versions, does this arcade release of Mario Kart mean that there's a new Mario Kart home game coming soon? We'll only know the real truth of it all at E3, where an official English reveal of the game will probably be made.

Special Thanks to belmakor from the GA Forums for his impressions!