Mario Kart 8 is a beautiful, fun kart racer that introduces sound new
ideas to Nintendo’s 22-year old franchise. While it doesn't reach Double
Dash-levels of risk and experimentation, Mario Kart 8
builds on the series' most essential aspects better than any of its
predecessors. Twisting U-turns, a blistering sense of speed, skillful track designs,
robust tournament and online features, and gorgeous graphics fall into
lockstep all at once. The end result shouldn't come as a surprise: Mario
Kart 8 is the king of the mascot kart circuit, and it gave me hours of
enjoyment.
Right from the starting line, Nintendo’s emphasis on re-tuning Mario
Kart 8 in a meaningful way is apparent, and everything moves at a faster
pace. Characters and vehicle customization parts unlock quickly, Lakitu
helps you recover faster, and new items like the Piranha Plant and Boomerang Flower make for useful additions without throwing off Mario Kart’s delicate balance. And finally, Blue Shell-haters rejoice: the new Super Horn stops the much-maligned comeback mechanic dead in its tracks, allowing skill to prevail more often than ever before.
The single best improvement in Mario Kart 8 are the subtle, yet
ultimately satisfying antigravity transformations. They set up visually
impressive moments while introducing a unique new mechanic to therace. Bumping nearby racers while in anti-grav can give your opponent a speed boost though,
so you have to consider the best potential angle to slam into them so
that you’re the only one who benefits. Nailing a perfect bump after a
tricky S-curve delivered a satisfying feeling of accomplishment. It’s
surprising to see such a potentially chaotic idea turned into a nuanced
mechanic.
Mario Kart 8’s creative track designs carefully factor antigravity in without overusing it. Some tracks, like Wario Stadium, use it to great effect, but retro tracks like Donut Plains 3
rely on good old-fashioned kart racing skills. The careful layout of
boost pads and item boxes provide plenty of opportunities to make
comebacks without it feeling cheap or unearned. The deceptively simple
shortcuts often felt risky, making me weigh my options mid-race
depending on how I was doing rather than blindly jumping into the
alternate routes ahead.
The roster tops off at 30 characters,
and offers a wide selection of mascots to choose from, including the
amazing Koopa kids. However, the overload of babies in this installment
floods the roster with smaller racers that feel too similar to their big
brother (or sister) counterparts. Overall, the list is great but more
obscure characters like Dry Bones or Nabbit would’ve been welcome
additions.
Mario Kart 8 offers a bunch of options to play. Single and two-player
split-screen races unfolded at a stunning 60 frames-per-second without a
hiccup. Three and four-player local competitive races halved the
framerate to 30 fps, but it’s an acceptable loss when the racing looks
and plays this well. Mario Kart 8's graphics are some of the best I've
seen in a game made by Nintendo. Each racer, kart combination, and
track showcased expert art direction right down to the tiny treads on
the tires.
Online mode supports up to 12-players, and Nintendo gets a lot of
mileage out of Mario Kart 8’s basic online features. It’s easy to join
races, setup tournaments, and even upload highlight videos to YouTube,
but once again, Nintendo’s den mother attitude rears its head: Chat is
restricted to lobbies with friends only. There’s no option to invite
friends into a game, and Mario Kart 8 also doesn't provide message
notifications. This is seriously disappointing because you have to use
outside means to coordinate friends-only races. These omissions often
make Mario Kart 8 feel like a fancy import Ferrari with an old ham radio
built into the dashboard.
There’s a few other small disappointments in Mario Kart 8
as well. The GamePad always mirrors what’s on the television instead of
splitting players into two separately rendered screens. Battle Mode
probably suffers the most egregiously of all though. The arenas from
previous versions are out, and the newly modified racetracks Nintendo
replaced them with don’t feel differentiated enough from the standard
tracks. It basically just adds three balloons to standard races.
Ultimately, these changes have made what used to be a fun distraction
into something completely forgettable.
For a racing game about constantly plowing forward to the finish
line, I was surprised by how well Mario Kart 8 also nails the tiniest
details. Mario Kart TV’s simple editing suite let me tweak highlight
reels, and re-watch my most memorable performances. As I watched clips
in slow motion, I was amazed by how much texture detail I had missed
while I was tearing up the track.
The Verdict
Mario Kart 8
is the best kart racing game Nintendo has made in a long time. It
strikes a careful balance between refining old ideas while introducing
fresh new ones. Admittedly, its gorgeous graphics and jazzy orchestrated
soundtrack bolster its presentation, but you’re getting a lot more than
just looks with this one – although I spent an awful lot of time
gawking at the details in slow-motion, the fast and furious pace of
racing with friends both locally and online is what really kept me
coming back.
Source: ign.com
Rating: 9
