So, at this point, I'm almost proud to admit that Kevin and I are still playing freakin' Mario Kart: Double Dash!! like crazy fiends. While we're not exactly playing daily, I would say that we're still playing about 5 hours a week on average.
One of the reasons why this game is still engaging us, now 14 months into our addiction, is that it still (even after all of this time) has new things to offer. I have prognosticated for awhile that one of Kevin's and my races might come down to a tie, but as of yet, it has never happened, because the timing for each race goes down to the millisecond level. We have had race times separated by as little as 2 milliseconds, but we've never had completed identical times.
Until today:
Identical 3:22:606 times on Rainbow Road in 150cc
And so, finally the question has been answered -- what will happen if the race times are tied? Will the game award 10 points to each player (declaring the match a draw), or will it choose a winner and loser?
Now we finally have the answer: it will declare me the winner (mine is the kart with the flying Koopa and Baby Bowser), and Kevin the loser (he favors the Toad + Koopa combination). Actually, the way that the algorithm appears to work (we had a long discussion afterwards about this, naturally) is that in order for the person who is in first place to go down to second, the other racer must not only meet the first-place player's time, but exceed it. And in this race, I went into the final turn ahead, and even though I didn't play it well, Kevin only managed to catch up to me, but not pass me. Therefore I held my first place position throughout the entire turn, and Kevin ended up getting second (even though he had the same exact time).
Of course, I got hit with two blue shells, so I would have had the moral victory no matter what happened. :)
-Andy.