Weve put together a handy guide to everything you need to know about the upcoming racer, taking a look at brand new features as well as the return of classic tracks and traditions which make the series such a nostalgic joy to play. While Mario Kart has always been a series heavily built on a tried and tested formula, Mario Kart 7 boasts a hefty amount of content and changes to the series - perhaps that's the reason why were getting a fully fledged numbered sequel, rather than an entry which simply sticks 3D onto the end of the title. Taken on its own terms, Mario Kart 7 is also one of the biggest and most anticipated entries in the series to date. Along with Super Mario 3D Land, the game has boosted interest in the 3DS and pushes the handheld towards a brilliant future. If you didn’t want another Mario Kart game, I’m sorry to report that this Mario Kart game is indeed a Mario Kart game. But if you wanted Mario Kart, don’t let that stop you: MK7 is easily one of the better games in the series, and it’s fine being just that. The Tanooki Tail isn’t useful very often at fending off enemy attacks, and getting seven different items at once? Not manageable, especially for those far enough back in the pack to get them. (Goats!) While there are a few obvious retro cup choices that made the most sense to add water or gliding sections to, they’re surrounded by some real favorites, like Waluigi Pinball, Koopa Cape and SNES Rainbow Road.Ī few additions weren’t so great, though. There’s also a cool one made up of music instruments, one designed like 8-bit Mario levels and one with goats. The original ones include special long tracks that are broken up into sections instead of laps, breaking up the repetition of a standard cup. The online multiplayer is more fleshed-out, with special challenge groups (only bananas, for example) and “communities,” which allow you to compete just with friends or Internet buddies and keep group-specific standings. It’s still not that hard to get into, but the extra layer of depth is appreciated. There’s a little more game here than in MK Wii, like the revival of coin collecting, more interesting and competitive alternative modes and the aforementioned statistics fiddling. The first: MK7 didn’t have to be playable by your grandparents. What makes the game truly great, though, are two things. (Or, if you’re less adventurous, Koopa Troopa in a muscle car with big honkin’ offroad wheels that just happen to be red.) Now, if you like Koopa Troopa in a muscle car with big honkin’ offroad wheels, you can get the same controls out of Bowser in a lightweight speeder with a parasol. In previous games, you’d go with the one supercar or baby buggy, as it had the stats you wanted, and that’d be it. Rather, the system is a great opportunity to try out different configurations for the fun of it. It’s a nice addition, as it gives you another opportunity for personalization, but the end result isn’t a more refined racing experience. Rather than just picking a kart and a racer, you now put together a chassis, wheels and a glider of some sort, each contributing to the vehicle’s final attributes. The other big selling point was the kart customization. (Though you did just buy a system designed for showing you cool visual effects, so you may need to get used to this kind of thing.) The water is just floaty, if you wanted areas with less precision and different dynamics for item aiming and avoidance, and otherwise it’s just a cool visual effect. In practice, though, it just compensates for MK7‘s less-ridiculous jumping (relative to MK Wii), and takes the place of previous sequences when you’d just be ferried through a tube of some sort to the next track segment. The gliding function will feel very familiar to those who have played the GameCube’s Kirby Air Ride, as it plays off the same “height or speed” mechanic and controls almost identically. Let’s start with the air and water additions. Two well-publicized changes are actually the least significant. What makes Mario Kart 7 different, though, falls well beyond the obvious. It’s so obvious that I feel a bit silly even articulating to you what this game is. It borrows the art style, the track aesthetic, the jump tricks and the Mario Kart Channel, and doesn’t do much to stand out from it. Mario Kart 7 is, in a very obvious way, a direct followup to Mario Kart Wii.
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