This game adds a host of features to a solid racing formula but is less fun than its predecessors. The best stuff requires more than one player to really experience. The single-player mode is a rote exercise in winning all the races possible to unlock new characters, vehicles and so on.

The biggest wrinkle is the addition of a second character to ride as co-pilot on each vehicle, but this doesn't really come into play except in multiplayer mode. In single player and standard multiplayer modes, the extra character simply acts to hold a second special weapon and dictate the karts available -- a team of Bowser and Mario, for example, would only be able to use a large kart, as Bowser can't fit in a smaller one.

The game looks excellent and sounds OK, and several systems can be connected, with enough equipment and trouble, to push the player limit past the standard four, but what "Mario Kart: Double Dash!!" really needs is online play.

SYSTEM: Nintendo GameCube
PUBLISHER: Nintendo
HOW MUCH: $49.99
AGE RATING: Everyone

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'Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy' (** 1/2)

It takes place 10 years after the climactic defeat of the Empire in "Return of the Jedi." The Imperial Remnant still poses a threat to the New Republic, and Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, along with assistant Kyle Katarn, teaches a new generation of Jedi the ways of the force.

That's where the player comes in, taking on the role of a young student named Jaden who has built a light saber with no formal training. En route to Skywalker's Jedi training center, Jaden's shuttle is shot down, and he and the other recruits are attacked by Imperial soldiers -- and what appears to be an evil Jedi. Escaping this threat, the apprentices begin their training, and are sent out into the galaxy on various missions, but the mystery of that first encounter is unraveled along the way.

"Jedi Academy" isn't a bad game, but it isn't great, either. It's too much of the same old thing.

SYSTEM: PC
PUBLISHER: LucasArts
HOW MUCH: $49.99
AGE RATING: Teen

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'Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide' (*** 1/2)

Dragons and kobolds and gnolls, oh my! These are just a handful of the freakish creatures encountered in "Shadows of Undrentide," the expansion pack to last year's excellent "Dungeons and Dragons" game "Neverwinter Nights." As an expansion, it requires that game to play, which is no great onus -- the original is good and cheap, easy to find for around $20, and the two games can be purchased as a $39.99 "Gold Edition."

The game opens with an attack on the remote school by a band of marauding kobolds, smallish lizard-like creatures in the service of a dragon. The kobolds poison the school's master and steal four magical artifacts, stirring up trouble in the nearby town of Hilltop on the way. It's up to the player and the other students to find a cure and get the treasures back.

The story will spread and tangle as the game goes on. Players can pick how their characters behave, whether good, evil or somewhere in between, and there are many character classes to choose from and develop.

SYSTEM: PC
PUBLISHER: Atari
HOW MUCH: $19.99
AGE RATING: Teen