Mario Kart 64 in VR is not for the queasy

Mario Kart 64 expertly translated Nintendo's racing series to 3D when it was released in 1997, but what if you could get up even more close and personal with its polygonal tracks and karts? A new VR mod for the game, spotted by X user BeardoBenjo , appears to do that by effectively placing you in the game.

BeardoBenjo's post includes a clip of the game's Koopa Troopa Beach track, and a (fairly nauseating) first-person, head-tracked view of its tunnel shortcut. The game's simplistic visuals have a certain added charm in VR, but more importantly, viewing everything in first-person conveys a sense of speed Mario Kart 64 's original third-person view just can't capture. In VR, it quite literally looks like you're zooming down the beach head-first, rather than in your kart.

I can now hit my favourite shortcut in Mario Kart 64 in glorious first person VR 😂

What the hell is happening with VR modding this year 🔥 pic.twitter.com/onx6DzJlg6

The mod project was created by developer RaYRoD TV , who's made multiple mods that bring classic games into virtual reality including Banjo-Kazooie and Star Fox 64 . The Mario Kart 64 mod is based on an existing PC port of the racing game called SpaghettiKart . It's available for free to download and install from GitHub , provided you already own a Mario Kart 64 ROM or are willing to dump one from a physical cartridge. Besides getting the game up and running in PC VR headsets, the mod also adds a VR options menu that lets you adjust things like stereo depth, your eye height and the placement of the game's HUD.

Nintendo hasn't shown much interest in VR outside of the rudimentary stereoscopic visuals of the Virtual Boy and a one-off Nintendo Labo kit . If you're nostalgic for the Nintendo 64 and have a VR headset collecting dust, there are certainly worse ways to spend a weekend. Just don't eat before.