Mario Kart Arcade out soon

Namco and Nintendo have announced that Mario Kart Arcade GP will be racing into arcades next month.

It stars our old friends Mario, Luigi, Peach and Wario of course, but also new Namco characters available only in the arcade version - namely Pac-Man, Ms Pac-Man and Blinky.

And if you'd rather see your very own face in the game, you can use the NamCam2 to take your picture and stick it on the head of any character.

Up to four cabinets can be linked together for multiplayer hilarity, and there are six worlds, 24 courses and 57 objects - including more than 40 developed just for the arcade version. Expect the usual collection of shells, banana skins, coins and the like, but also special weapons such as the Needle Bomb, Thunder Cloud and Tornado.

It all sounds like ever such a lot of fun to us, though probably not as much fun as Jambo Safari was. Incidentally, if anyone knows of an arcade which still has a Jambo Safari machine, please can you let us know so we can complete the special research. Thank you.