I am dying. Either aged 84 or 54, according to the two extremes of life expectancy calculator I found online, which is worrying because I am 55 in December. I’m running out of time to do the things I dream of: see Machu Picchu; find a good vegan sausage; beat my kids at Mario Kart again.
It was our number one family game until they started massacring me so gleefully I was forced into acts of petty revenge: namely, taking things of theirs they loved and secretly giving them to charity shops. They still miss that cat.
When they got Mario Kart 8, I said I had put away such childish things. But now with impending death somewhere between mere months and decades away, I spent a week training to be top dog again.
This game now has a cast of thousands. There are different versions of all the originals, plus total randos such as Kamek, the enigmatic stranger known only as Villager, and whoever the hell Pauline is. I am sure that Glen Powell is in there somewhere. He is in everything else these days.
This is the first time I’ve handled a Switch OLED, a fragile little thing the size of a 1970s sandwich with a recessed on/off button that requires a pair of tweezers. It is not a machine made for the large of finger.
Those distended digits still have skills though. I tell my oldest I am breezing through the 50cc and 100cc levels. She says to me, “That’s great, Dad. As long as you try your best. That’s all you can do.” She is smiling. But not with her eyes. “Just remember, Dad … Rainbow Road.”
I break out in a cold sweat. That track was the destroyer of dreams. The unspooler of sanity. The mocker of depth perception.
On day two I conquer Rainbow Road on the 100cc Star Cup, racking up wins like a pro. I win four grands prix a day with perfect drift boost timing. Joy courses through my (presumably) plaque-encrusted ancient veins despite menu music that sounds like it’s straight from a “comedy” cop flick starring one of the Kevins (Hart or James) chasing someone through a cake factory and emerging covered in icing.
I am surprised I haven’t skidded off a track once. Then I notice I have had steering assist on. Crikey. This is like that time my wife revealed to me that I had been playing Horizon Zero Dawn on “story” difficulty.
Sans steering assist, it is an entirely different kettle of mushrooms. 150cc Star Road becomes the nightmare it was before. I violently hate this track so much it could be a Gaspar Noé movie. A four hour practise on the Friday has eczema breaking out on my face with the stress. My wife asks me why I have just screamed, “Up YOURS Lady Rosaline!”
Saturday sees me turning to drink with the pressure.
Diamond Family Grand Prix Sunday arrives. My wife is pulled into work. This is unfortunate because she is very beatable. “Are you any good at Mario Kart?” I ask Son’s Girlfriend.
“Not really,” she replies.
“Perfect,” I declare, “You are player four.”
My son is playing shirtless. He says it’s because he doesn’t want to ruin his work shirt but it’s an obvious power move, so I take off my shirt, too. I have more hair and tattoos than he has. Nice try, son.
The controllers are a bigger problem. I have been practising with two Joy-Cons welded into one device. But with four players, we each have one Joy-Con the size of a shrinkflated Mars bar, the shoulder buttons converted into two staple-sized slivers. My hands are twisted into such an unnatural shape that within minutes I have the kind of arthritic pain I didn’t expect for another 20 years.
And something else is wrong. My guy (Dry Bones, picked to reflect what feels like one of my many medical afflictions) keeps veering to the right.
“What the hell is wrong with my controls?” I scream, from seventh place.
“My controllers drift,” says my son.
“Why?”
“Because it’s Nintendo.”
I had forgotten all about this. Just as every Xbox controller’s shoulder button atrophies after a year, every Nintendo controller develops a drift. Thank God Nintendo aren’t in control of Mars rover buggies, or they’d just move in circles.
“You get used to it, Dad.”
He does. I don’t.
I finish the grand prix in third place behind The Son and Number 1 Child, who really is an exceptional gamer. I ask her how she is so good. “Durr. Autism, Dad!” She replies.
I demand a rematch, in which Number 1 Child has to use the drifting controller.
I do even worse. Son’s Girlfriend is now beating me. She is the loveliest, sweetest, most polite girl in the world, the kind you dream of for your son. But she is now chirping at me like she’s one of my own. Horrid child.
By some miracle (namely, me getting an armada of blue shells to fire off), I overtake Number 1 Child to win on the line of the final race. She still wins the grand prix, but I have shown I can still hack it. I perform a loud and surprisingly intricate victory dance before I book myself into massage therapy for my twisted claw hands.
There is life in the old dad yet.