Thanks to this texture pack, made by fans, you can play Mario Kart 64 in Glorious HD

The Nintendo 64 fan base has been pretty damn busy lately, with the PC port of Zelda: Ocarina of Time finally launching – and getting a bunch of fun and unusual mods – and even more games rumored to be available through reverse engineering are to be made. Next on the list, however, is a very slick and shiny update to a party game favorite.

The Mario Kart 64 HD fan group has been hard at work creating an HD texture pack for Mario Kart 64, and over the weekend the group announced that they had completed the recreation of all of the characters. Now you can drive around as your favorite driver in beautiful HD graphics:

Looks damn good, right? The full package is almost complete – and as the video on Twitter shows, every single asset in the game is being updated. That means even items like seashells and banana peels are remodeled in HD. No stone will be left unturned.

The party uses the game’s title screen and promotional art to inform them what the models, courses, and items should look like. The team has been working on it for a number of years, with various updates, but this latest one looks like the sharpest yet. Heck, even the menus are getting an overhaul!

It’s amazing to see how much smoother Mario Kart 64 HD makes things look, and it makes a real difference. But the real eye opener is seeing the portraits and characters from the HD pack and the original game side by side. The difference is graduation: