Post by Striper on May 2, 2008 6:33:48 GMT -5
Ok so yet another highly anticipated title from Nintendo for the Wii - seems to be no shortage of these lately. And I must say, I was rather pleased that it came out here in Europe earlier than in the US for once. All that torment has been reversed somewhat! ;D
So I did get it the very day it was released - it's handy since the GAME store is only 2 minutes away from the entrance to my college. I usually end up getting games and stuff I want the day it comes out as a result. I've always been a fan of the Mariokart series and was hoping for an even better experience this time round with the promise of the Wii. So here are my thoughts on it:
Unfortunately, for me, it feels like a step in the wrong direction for the series. Whilst it's still the frantic to-and-fro non-stop, sweat-inducing action brought over from the older games in the series, there are a few loose ends unecessarily thrown into this one I feel. Sometimes they are just little things that take away from the experience, like the way it doesn't show your lap times or even race times after the race. It may sound trivial, but it's a case of taking things for granted and you don't realise how much you'd miss them or how much they bug you until they're gone.
As you probably all know, they introduced a new wheel peripheral for this game. I was pretty intrigued by that idea and really wanted to see if it could hold up. I can tell you for certain, it definitely takes a fair amount of getting used to (expect to look crap at the game when playing with it the first few times) and you do end up holding it down rather than up as races go on (until you find you're not turning properly and realise you need to re-raise the wheel) but if you can get around those difficulties, then it's not a bad addition at all. Certainly makes for a different, and at times, nice change to the tried and tested button-pressing of the controller.
Perhaps the most disappointing thing about the game though is what has been taken out of the series. While yes, this Mariokart has the best graphics to date of the series and has a whole cast of characters to play as, there lacks depth and character in the game. For one, the races no longer seem to be about racing as such. No longer can you stay in 1st position by driving flawlessly nor is it very difficult anymore to make up for your bad driving. The fact of the matter is, the items are terribly unbalanced. There is too much focus on all-powerful items that instantly turn the race in your favour or screws up other people's even if you're miles behind them. Lagging behind in last because you fell a few times on Rainbow Road? No problem! Just pick up a thunder, a POW block and a 2 bullet bills and you find yourself back in 4th all of a sudden. You're always guaranteed to get big items to make up for poor driving it seems. And with Nintendo's decision to pump each race up to 12 drivers, a 50% increase, that leaves way more chance for you to be screwed up if you're 1st by someone else picking up a blue shell, which happens annoyingly often.
The other big flaw is the lack of character. There's something bland about the feel of the game. Despite having lots of characters to choose from, a lot of them aren't very spectacular to begin with. I mean, who really cares much or wants to play as baby Daisy? Of course, that's not all. Every single character feels pretty much the same in this game. Although you naturally have the light, medium and heavy classes, they don't really feel much different in this game because one, you can make up for it with the wide range of vehicles for them and two, you have bikes in the mix. Even big, slow characters can become deadly corner-turners now and they aren't so tough to push everyone around on a measly old bike either. And there is no character specialisation either! They've gotten rid of character specific items, which was a really good feature I thought. At least that was some way of making each character unique whereas now... you don't really care who you're playing as.
To end on a good note, I know so far I've mostly had bad things to say about it, but all in all it is still a Mariokart game and whilst not the best in the series in my opinion, it's still a solid game for fun, especially with friends. The good is that it's just Mariokart. It does what it does well and that's entertain with lots of manic racing. And of course, being online compatible it always a plus too. The ultimate factor in deciding whether yo get this or not will be whether you're a Mariokart fan or not. ^^
My verdict - 7/10
So I did get it the very day it was released - it's handy since the GAME store is only 2 minutes away from the entrance to my college. I usually end up getting games and stuff I want the day it comes out as a result. I've always been a fan of the Mariokart series and was hoping for an even better experience this time round with the promise of the Wii. So here are my thoughts on it:
Unfortunately, for me, it feels like a step in the wrong direction for the series. Whilst it's still the frantic to-and-fro non-stop, sweat-inducing action brought over from the older games in the series, there are a few loose ends unecessarily thrown into this one I feel. Sometimes they are just little things that take away from the experience, like the way it doesn't show your lap times or even race times after the race. It may sound trivial, but it's a case of taking things for granted and you don't realise how much you'd miss them or how much they bug you until they're gone.
As you probably all know, they introduced a new wheel peripheral for this game. I was pretty intrigued by that idea and really wanted to see if it could hold up. I can tell you for certain, it definitely takes a fair amount of getting used to (expect to look crap at the game when playing with it the first few times) and you do end up holding it down rather than up as races go on (until you find you're not turning properly and realise you need to re-raise the wheel) but if you can get around those difficulties, then it's not a bad addition at all. Certainly makes for a different, and at times, nice change to the tried and tested button-pressing of the controller.
Perhaps the most disappointing thing about the game though is what has been taken out of the series. While yes, this Mariokart has the best graphics to date of the series and has a whole cast of characters to play as, there lacks depth and character in the game. For one, the races no longer seem to be about racing as such. No longer can you stay in 1st position by driving flawlessly nor is it very difficult anymore to make up for your bad driving. The fact of the matter is, the items are terribly unbalanced. There is too much focus on all-powerful items that instantly turn the race in your favour or screws up other people's even if you're miles behind them. Lagging behind in last because you fell a few times on Rainbow Road? No problem! Just pick up a thunder, a POW block and a 2 bullet bills and you find yourself back in 4th all of a sudden. You're always guaranteed to get big items to make up for poor driving it seems. And with Nintendo's decision to pump each race up to 12 drivers, a 50% increase, that leaves way more chance for you to be screwed up if you're 1st by someone else picking up a blue shell, which happens annoyingly often.
The other big flaw is the lack of character. There's something bland about the feel of the game. Despite having lots of characters to choose from, a lot of them aren't very spectacular to begin with. I mean, who really cares much or wants to play as baby Daisy? Of course, that's not all. Every single character feels pretty much the same in this game. Although you naturally have the light, medium and heavy classes, they don't really feel much different in this game because one, you can make up for it with the wide range of vehicles for them and two, you have bikes in the mix. Even big, slow characters can become deadly corner-turners now and they aren't so tough to push everyone around on a measly old bike either. And there is no character specialisation either! They've gotten rid of character specific items, which was a really good feature I thought. At least that was some way of making each character unique whereas now... you don't really care who you're playing as.
To end on a good note, I know so far I've mostly had bad things to say about it, but all in all it is still a Mariokart game and whilst not the best in the series in my opinion, it's still a solid game for fun, especially with friends. The good is that it's just Mariokart. It does what it does well and that's entertain with lots of manic racing. And of course, being online compatible it always a plus too. The ultimate factor in deciding whether yo get this or not will be whether you're a Mariokart fan or not. ^^
My verdict - 7/10