Mario Kart 8
Well, I haven't finished it, hell, I've spent only 4-5 hours in it. I haven't won all the cups, but I have played them all a couple of times, if not more. I haven't played battle mode. But I think I can give a pretty decent review of this game regardless - I've got a pretty good sense of it.
Controls - excellent. Accurate, tight, easy to pick up. Drifting comes pretty easy - some of the carts drift a lot wider than you'd be used to in a MK series, but others are quite reasonable. I usually go for the bikes that can do the "inside" drift pattern, and I believe there are four of those.
Sound - Good, if unremarkable. It's a Mario Kart game, and the sound is appropriate. Nothing that will blow your mind.
Gameplay - General Racing - the racing is definitely Fox News racing - fair and balanced. It is also chaotic as always - Just a few minutes ago I finished 6th instead of 1st because a blue shell hit me literally a couple feet from the finish line. That's Mario Kart. I think that in the Wii version, the AI was a bit too chaotic with 12 racers - you could go from 1st to 12th in a heartbeat. That seems to have been fixed in 8. The slower racers are even slower and the items are a bit less rewarding/punishing, so that ridiculous, absurd amount of chaos is alleviated just a bit. It's still there, but in a more appropriate amount - which is good because yes, this game still includes 12 total racers in each race.
Gameplay - Anti-Gravity. This was the big change for this game - you go over a blue strip on the ground and go into anti-gravity mode where you can ride upside down, on walls, and on big looping sections of track in the sky. You also get a speed boost when you crash into a racer or any of several objects placed there for your use. It's okay - it works as advertised and it allows Nintendo to do a bunch of cool stuff with the tracks. The whole speed boost thing takes some time to get used to - I'm usually in the mindset of avoiding other characters, so purposefully running into them in counterintuitive.
Tracks. Very good. The remakes of old tracks are particularly good as well. The only track that I really hate overall is Sweet Sweet Canyon - a lame and uninspired idea that isn't done well at all. The track itself sucks, the environment around the track REALLY sucks. But everything else is pretty good. Special Cup is particularly good.
Characters. I haven't unlocked them all yet, but whatever, a fair mix of characters. I definitely like the addition of the Koopalings. Pink Gold Peach is a bit of a joke. I'm not sure why Diddy, Boo, Dry Bones, etc were left out, but whatever. A small thing that I don't really care about, but some do.
Karts. Kart Customization! You can choose different bodies, wheels, and parachutes allowing you to fine-tune how your cart drives. This is awesome, it brings about a ton of unlockables, and I love the combinations and handling characteristics that you can create. A+.
Items
You've got your mainstays - your green and red shells which work as we all know them to. Bananas are back, but they circle your kart instead of lining up behind you. This is a gripe for me - they circle slowly, and the hitboxes on bananas in this game are miniscule. Really tiny. So bananas aren't much of a hazard, and they aren't much protection either. Similarly, mushrooms circle your kart, meaning that if you get the 3-mushroom item, if someone runs into your circling mushrooms, they get the speed boost. I don't really have an opinion on that. Boomerang is pretty solid. Horn is rare, but more useful than I thought it would be. And the blue shell now travels along the ground again, like it did in MK64. And it trolls the 1st place player so hard - it like circles them and then stops right in front of them before hitting. One last thing to mention - you only can hold one item at a time. So when you're holding a green shell behind your kart for protection, you can't collect another item.
Coins! Coins are back - you get a very small speed burst and it increases your top speed ever so slightly. It's a great thing to add - another gameplay mechanic to add interest, plus the coins look all sexy and shiny and are fun to collect.
The Cons
- The left out the "Fast Ghosts" or whatever you want to call them that you could unlock. I loved grinding Time Trials to try to unlock and beat them. What the hell, Nintendo????
- When you hold the L button to hold a shell behind your kart, it takes a little bit of time for it to actually be deployed behind your kart. Not much, just a fraction of a second, but enough time where it is really noticeable and has cost me several times. It's slightly annoying.
- You can't display the mini-map on the screen, only on the gamepad. I think the gamepad is a really good use for maps and inventories and the like, but not for a racing game. Who is going to look off the screen onto the gamepad to check the map during the middle of a frantic race? Bad form there.
- There are no Options. Literally, no options menu anywhere. Fine, I guess.
- Battle mode used to be fun for the occasional bout or two. It appears to be totally ****ed.
TBD: Online play. Haven't touched it.
Overall, 9/10.
Last edited by schu_22; 06-03-2014 at 07:33 PM.