Mario Kart is now playable as a YouTube video and it’s amazing

Mario Kart has been turned into a playable YouTube video, but you’re only able to ‘drive’ on Rainbow Road. 

Por qué esta historia importa ahora

If you’re an internet user of a certain age, browser games were all the rage for you at some stage. The likes of Miniclip, Newgrounds, and Mousebreaker would take up significant time during and after school - if you weren’t logging onto Habbo Hotel or Runescape, anyway.

El contexto que mueve la conversación

While flash games have been killed off, there has been a rise in browser games over the last few months, especially those that combine two unusual elements. Collecting Wikipedia pages like Pokémon cards was a pretty popular one.

Qué puede pasar después

Now, a YouTube channel allows viewers to play Mario Kart as they watch along - but it’s just confined to Rainbow Road.

Lectura rápida para la comunidad

The video, which is aptly titled Mario Kart but it's a PLAYABLE YouTube video!, was uploaded at the end of June by Atlas Arcade and Animated Subtitles, and gives viewers a few instructions to help them along. 

Firstly, you have to align your view so that you’re following the Rainbow Road track, and then you have to enable captions so that you can change characters. You are able to play as: Mario, Toad, Yoshi, Princess Peach, Luigi, Wario, and Bowser.

After that, you use the A and D buttons on your keyboard to move the game along, and you can change the playback speed to go from 50 cc to 100 cc and 150 cc speeds.

You will also encounter some of the iconic Mario Kart power-ups, but if you fall off the Rainbow Road, it is scouts' honor - you have to restart the game yourself, as it won’t automatically end that way.

The game has drawn praise from plenty of users already, including YouTube itself. “We can now set up a challenge without leaving YouTube,” YouTube LatAm commented.

“Never did I ever think I would play Mario Kart on YouTube,” another user said. “Close enough, welcome back flash games,” another added. 

Its magic all comes from YouTube’s subtitles feature, which had actually been removed for a period. 

The same channel has made a playable version of Flappy Bird too.44:Tdb7, Mario Kart has bee