Review: Mario Kart 8

Mario Kart 8 hit stores at the end of May and, as expected, contributed to a notable increase in Nintendo Wii U hardware sales. The ever popular Mario Kart franchise has seen many new additions in features and it seems that Mario Kart 8 does its best to take a little bit from each as well as add a few new elements. For insight on all of those features, see the preview that was written for it.

Game Play

Not unlike other games in the series, MK8 is a fun racer that anyone can pick up that balances skill with luck. The 30 character roster is a good number of characters allowing for varying line-ups without feeling like the developers were scraping the bottom of the barrel. The game can be played with all available controllers and the Game Pad can support off TV play or act as a secondary map screen.

One thing I noticed while playing is that everything seems streamlined. While racing, the only thing stat on the screen is the racer’s position; things like lap times and course maps have either been removed or reside solely on the gamepad. Recovery from falling out of bounds take only a couple of seconds and puts you back into the action almost instantly.

There are 32 courses to choose from – 16 new and 16 remade from previous games. The game’s biggest new feature, “Zero Gravity Racing”, makes its was into many courses but without feeling forced. The new items: The Super Horn, Boomerang Flower, Piranha Flower and the Crazy 8, all fit in nicely and item distribution has been modified to take distance from the leader as well as position in determining what kind of items a racer will get.

Mario Kart 8 builds upon the great pillars of the franchise and with small tweaks here and there nicely brings together a refreshing experience.

Multiplayer

MK8 features both local and online multiplayer. Local multiplayer allows for 2 player Grand Prix racing and up to 4 players for VS and Battle modes. Battle mode has been changed from this game and has recieved a little bit of negativity. Rather than featuring battles on specially designed courses, balloon battles take place on one of 8 regular courses where score is kept based on the amount of ballons you have ramming and the amount of your opponents that you have popped. A novel thing about MK8 is the use of vertical split-screen as opposed to the outdated horizontal split. I find that I prefer this display on wide-screen TVs.

Up to 2 players from 1 system can go online together to race against other players from around the world. Custom rules and Tournament modes allow you to create rooms that other racers can join and race under very specific conditions (Karts only, Shells only, No items, etc…).

One bummer about multiplayer is that the Wii U Game Pad will mirror what is on the TV instead of acting as a separate screen. This means that the Game Pad will show the split screen as well unlike other multiplayer games such as Sonic and All-Star Racing Transformed where each player gets the luxury of their own full screen.

Graphics/Sound

Mario Kart 8 has some of the best graphics the Wii U has to offer so far. Gameplay runs at 60 fps for 1 and 2 player races and at 30 for 3 and 4 player matches. The colors are incredibly vibrant and the environments are very smooth.

The game has small details that really make things pop. Courses look more realistic instead of cartoony and are very detailed. Tires have visible treads and leave skidmarks that stay throughout the race. Each vehicle has headlights that turn on in cave and on night courses. Kart drivers are expressively animated – characters that find themselves neck in neck will look at each other. Most notably would be the newly popularized meme “ The Luigi Death Stare”. I’ll let the images speak for themselves.

The soundtrack of the game has been well acclaimed by players. Most songs feature real instruments that were recorded in real time. Songs from classic stages have found new life with expressive remixes and modernized renditions. Each track has its own theme and no two courses have the same tune. Character voicing is very clear and polished (although I could do without Mario screaming “Mario Kart 8!” every time the game starts).

Mario Kart TV

Mario Kart TV is a feature that allows you to upload highlights from a race directly to Miiverse and Youtube. Check out my video below as it outlines some of the features I’ve outlined. Also the ending is a super close photo-finish.

Verdict – 9.5

After playing for a few weeks now and really exploring Mario Kart 8, I’ve come to realize that this title will be in my Wii U for a long time. Overall, this game is just as enjoyable for veterans looking for something new as it is for newcomers unfamiliar with Mario Kart. While there are a few minor things that would have been desired, there were so many more things that I didn’t even know I wanted in a Mario Kart game. Well done!

Mario Kart retails for $59.99 in stores but can be found on Amazon for about $10 less.

Mario Kart 8 - preview

*Article originally posted on The Geek Generation.com *

Mario Kart is the biggest spin-off franchise in Nintendo’s collection with titles spanning across 7 different platforms, with the eighth one on its way for the Nintendo Wii U. With a release date of May 30, 2014, Mario Kart 8 is looking to combine the best traits from each game in the series and will be the first of many big first party titles that could potentially give the Wii U the momentum that it certainly needs.

Game Play

The most anticipated detail that will be appearing in Mario Kart 8 is the introduction of anti-gravity racing. When approaching specific sections of a course, the wheels of the karts will glow blue and turn in under the vehicle activating anti-gravity mode. This allows racers to drive up walls, vertical slopes, and even on sections where the course loops completely upside down. Instead of slowing each other down, collisions between racers in these areas will instead cause small increases in speed that can quickly turn the tide. This new game mechanic will allow for alternate racing paths, new strategies and even crazier race tracks than ever before.

READ MORE >>

A Farewell to DS and Wii Online Gaming

As forewarned, online gaming features for the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS have shut down today. This had been announced earlier this year as the company behind Nintendo's online servers, Game Spy has begun shut down of all multiplayer services - both with friends and with strangers. This will affect all games that use Wi-Fi for multiplayer content but does not mean that other internet features have been disabled, such as the Internet Channel, Netflix streaming, and downloading games from the Wii Shop.

It is worth noting that Nintendo games are not the only ones affected by this shut down - third party titles that span across many consoles will be affected in some way by this. Some are making efforts to remedy this situation but Nintendo is not one of them citing that incompatibilities and difficulties would make trying to find another way to host these games not effective.

This shut down affects popular multiplayer titles such as Mario Kart Wii, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, all Pokémon titles on the DS and many others. This does not, however, affect online gaming on the Nintendo Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. Those online services are provided directly by Nintendo through "The Nintendo Network".

It is with a heavy heart that I say goodbye to an era of VR points in Mario Kart but I am hopeful seeing that future games on the Wii U should have an enhanced online experience that some games (I'm looking at you Brawl) could benefit from. So let us not dwell on our memories for too long - there are many incoming games that will soon fill the void.

Mario Kart 8 – E3 2013 trailer

Another huge Nintendo game announced today is the upcoming entree in the Mario Kart franchise!! Mario Kart 8 will be on it's way come next year. There's a lot of stuff from the previous game as well as some new stuff.

"As the name suggests, Mario Kart 8 will be Nintendo’s 8th installment in the highly successful Mario Kart franchise. The game will encompass many of the same features used in Mario Kart 7, including the gliders, tricks, and underwater racing. Nintendo is also taking the racer to new heights with the power of anti-gravity..."
READ MORE

Real Life Mario Kart

Head over to The Geek Generation to read my newest WebFinds article featuring a video of the closest thing to real life Mario Kart that I've ever seen.


A group of scientists at Waterloo Labs have made my wildest dreams come true. Using computers built into go-karts, they have effectively created the closest thing to a real life simulation of Mario Kart. Items placed along the course are recorded by the computers and force the karts to respond accordingly READ MORE

Oh, and they also mentioned my article on
 Twitter so definitely give them a look too!!

Series at a Glance: Mario Kart

Super Mario Kart Game Play

Nintendo's top selling racing game started on September 1, 1992 with Super Mario Kart for the SNES. Starting the tradition, there has been a Mario Kart game for every following game system (excluding the Gameboy Color) making it the most popular Mario spin-off series. Players can compete in a Grand Prix style mode, time trials or head to head in multiplayer.

Mario Kart consists of 3 major elements: Various colorful and gimicy racetracks, Characters of different weight and speed classes, and finally, the most important aspect: items.

Race tracks are usually designed based on a theme. In Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart: Super Circuit (for the Gameboy Advance) multiple courses were named and based on the same exact theme. For example, "Mario Circuit 1" appears similar to "Mario Circuit 2"; both are flat and simplistic courses with wide turns. In contrast, "Bowser's Castle 1-4" are based in lava filled courses with jumps and sharp turns. Other games would simply dedicate a single course on one topic such as "Toad's Turnpike" in MK64 or "Wario's Goldmine" in Mario Kart Wii.

 

Select Character Screen from MK 64

Characters each have their own strengths and weaknesses in each game. Only Mario, Peach, Luigi, Toad, Yoshi and Bowser have been playable in every iteration of Mario Kart to date. The number of playable characters varies by game; increasing as more and more characters are developed in the main series. Lightweight characters, such as Toad and Peach typically have cars with high acceleration and handling but can be easily pushed aside by bigger characters. Heavyweight racers like Bowser and Donkey Kong have much poorer acceleration but generally have higher top speeds. Midwieghts are considered to be the most balanced of the group and racers like Mario and Luigi are examples of this group.

Mario Kart Wii Gameplay

Items have been a part of the series since its birth and made it stand out amongst traditional racing games. Rather than relying on the fastest cars and the best reflexes and the attitude of "one bad turn and you'll never finish in first", items allow for supreme comebacks in the forms of offensive, defensive and performance boosting items. Koopa Shells, straight out of Super Mario Bros. act as missiles that can be thrown at other players. Banana Peels can create obstacles that reek havoc on those who spin out on them. Although standard mushrooms don't make your player bigger as you would expect, they instead act as a boost of speed that lets the player speed up for a moment. And finally, the most sought after item is the Starman. This item makes the user invincible and speeds him or her up considerable letting the tides of the race shift in the blink of an eye.






Check out overviews of the entries in this game's series. Click on the titles for more in-depth articles:

*Super Mario Kart -

Released for the SNES in 1992 and is also available on the Nintendo Wii's Virtural Console. This game started it all. It included eight characters from the Mario series including Mario, Peach, Bowser, Donkey Kong JR, and even a Koopa Troopa. Players would have up to 20 courses to race through and a Grand Prix mode to race for 4 different cups. It also had a multiplayer VS. mode and a balloon battle mode which would be the first of it's kind. The game sold numerous copies and became one of the best sellers for the Super Nintendo.

*Mario Kart 64 -

Released for the N64 in 1996 and is also available on the Nintendo Wii's Virtural Console. On the N64, Mario started out with a bang. Released as the second Mario title for the system, Mario Kart 64 took the series in a new direction. Rather than racing flat characters around static courses, MK 64 brought simulated 3-D graphics utilizing the superior power of the N64. Wario and Donkey Kong replaced Dk JR and Koopa Troopa keeping the roster at 8. 16 new courses were available and unlike the numbering system of Super Mario Kart, each raceway was unique and individual and had some 

connection to a character or location in the Mario Universe. The game also 
has voice acting for each character which is a nice touch when hitting 
your opponents with a Koopa Shell.

*Mario Kart: Super Circuit --

The first Mario Kart for a handheld system was Mario Kart Super Circuit. It was released for the Gameboy Advance. Unlike Mario Kart 64, Super Circuit shows that it was heavily influenced by the original game. The handling of Karts is very similar and courses are designed and named in the same way. After beating the game, it also has a very SMK themed surprise but I won't give that away here. It also had a multiplayer system for those who had friends with their own GBAs, gamelink cables and at least 1 cartridge.

*Mario Kart: Double Dash --

Double Dash was the GameCube entry of the Mario Kart series. Aside from presenting sleeker graphics, an expanded character roster, and an adjusted points system it's number one upgrade was in it's name: Double Dash = 2 Characters racing on the same Kart. Rather than picking just one racer, players would choose two characters to act as the driver and the co-pilot. The person in front would act as the driver while the person riding on the back would handle things like throwing and activating items. New courses and new types of obstacles would make this another top contender in the world of racing games.

*Mario Kart DS --

In case the title doesn't make it obvious enough, Mario Kart DS was released on the Nintendo DS and was the first Mario Kart game to offer Online Multiplayer action. It was also the first game to offer numerous karts for each individual character that had it's own set of stats and not just acceleration, speed, and weight. The top screen acts as the typical racing screen while the touch screen of the DS acts as a map screen that allows the player to see the shape of the course, other racers' locations, and any obstacles that might be coming towords him or herself.

*Mario Kart Wii --

For the 4th generation of Mario Kart console games, Mario Kart Wii returns to single racer karts, but expands on the ideas of multiple karts from Mario Kart Double Dash and Mario Kart DS. And by expand, I mean take it in a whole different direction with the addition of playing with bikes as well as go-karts. The game also offers the largest selection of characters to date with 24. New items, new characters, new courses and a new online system and that seems like a lot. Well here's one more new thing: All Mario Kart games in the past feature races with 8 participants but Mario Kart Wii antes up with 12 racers per race. And last but certainly not least is the game's use of motion control utilizing the Wii-mote and the Wii-Wheel as it's default control system (but can also be played wii-mote and nunchuck style, with the classic controller and with the gamecube controller to suit ever gamer's preference). 

*Mario Kart 7 --

Info Coming Soon!






Further Reading
http://www.mariowiki.com/Mario_Kart_(series)
http://www.smbhq.com/smk.htm