Hideko Konno talks Mario Kart News

Mario Kart DS producer Hideko Konno has revealed a few more details of the game, including news that there are secret characters to unlock and stars to earn if you're proper-good.

Speaking to weblog Games|Life, Konno said: "As you're playing for a while, maybe if you beat some staff ghosts in the time trial mode, you'll get stars next to your user name. You can get up to three, and you have to do quite a bit to get those three stars. Once you've done that you'll see them online.

"Other players will say, "Wow, that guy must be really good because of [those stars] he has."

Konno also offered some handy tips on becoming Mario Kart champion: "There are secret characters that people are going to get, and some of them have better attributes. But mostly, if you feel the pressure of online matchups, you'll perform better if you keep a cool head.

"Don't change your race style just because you're online. The fundamentals haven't changed."

Konno reckons Mario Kart DS is the best game in the series so far - even better than the legendary SNES version, a particular favourite of his.

"If you look at the volume of Mario Kart DS, in every aspect of the game... I think we've done it. We've surpassed Super Mario Kart," he said.

So what's next for Konno and his team? Why, something next-gen, of course: "We're pretty much just working on Revolution stuff right now. We have to continue working on DS stuff, but mostly we have to create something big for Revolution.

"What's got me thinking about new ideas is the controller," Konno went on, waving his wrist around for emphasis.

"Did you see the Tokyo Game Show video? We actually have things using the movements you saw. Like the cooking game. We have this game with a big wok that you use to cook Chinese food, and it's really interesting to have the meat and vegetables frying in there, and use the controller to flip the food around without it spilling out of the pan."

Game|Life was at pains to stress that this crazy wok game is "not at this point a retail product but a creative in-house experiment," however. You can read the full interview on the Game|Life website.