10 Things you might not know about Mario Kart

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The Blue Shell's Origin Story

Now the most divisive item in Mario Kart by far, the blue shell was first introduced to the series for purely pragmatic reasons. The technical limitations of Mario Kart 64 meant that the game simply couldn't handle it when a large number of characters crowded together on one part of the racetrack (and therefore all needed to be rendered at the same time to appear on-screen without a hiccup). The game's designers therefore concocted a clever work-around: add an ultra-powerful item that could quickly scatter drivers every which way.

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