Mario Kart 7

[miffy495]

Any other 3DS folks been playing this lately? I picked it up earlier this week and have been blasting through all the single player stuff since. Beat all 8 cups on 50cc and 100cc, and all 4 new cups on 150cc. Would have done the classic cups on 150cc too, but my battery is about to crap out on me. So far I like it a lot. The Star cup is pretty heavy on underwater bits, which I wish they'd spread out more throughout the games, but in general the new courses are great. I really like that there are point-to-point races in this version. It's a small new addition, but one with a lot of potential. Only 3 of the 16 new courses are point-to-point, but they're some of my favourite tracks. When I saw that the new Rainbow Road was of this type, I had the hugest grin on my face. Almost as big as the grin when I saw that the last track in the classic cups in the SNES Rainbow Road, but with small additions like the entire section of track shaking and throwing you around when one of the giant flashing thwomps hits. After the mis-steps of Mario Kart Wii I was nervous about this one, but can say now that it ranks up there with the best of them. The only things that are really holding it back are small details, like the sparks when powersliding are based on how long you've slid rather than your shaking of the analog disc. As a Mario Kart aficionado, I've gotta give this one its propers. Any thumbs down for a bit of online racing?

PS: I wish I'd started unlocking characters before doing 150cc. It's nice now that I'm unlocking a new character every time I finish a cup, but going through my first 16 cups only unlocking a drip feed of kart customization stuff sucked.

[mikemariano]

Oh heck; don't say good things about the new Mario Kart. I still pull out the DS version every once in a while and I'd like to keep lying to myself and saying that that version is all I need.

[Sno]

I just got this, it's quite good.

I think MKDS is still my favorite overall selection of courses, but this is quite nice.

I'm glad they're sticking with the hold-to-charge power-sliding scheme, fuck snaking.

The other way, the way it was in MKDS and some of the others, it was more kinetic, but what it allows just ruins those games. It really, really does. Don't defend it, you can't, fuck snaking.

(ARRRGH, SNAKING.)

I guess there isn't a Thumbs community or anything?

[miffy495]

I'm really not sure. If I have you on my 3DS friends list though, I'd be down for a race or two sometime. Now that I've finished up Mirror Mode, I'm looking for some real people to race against. While I didn't win every single race, I did get gold on every cup on the very first try. It's kinda easy. Still, after the super disappointing Wii MK, I'm very happy that the series seems back on track.

EDIT: Also, snaking in general is fine, I suppose, but I've always found it beside the point of the game. It tends to ruin it for those who are in it for just a fun, light, racing experience. That said, I do like the analogue stick activated blue sparks. I wish Nintendo could find a way to have it so you can only activate on a turn but it is still dependent on stick-shaking. Doing it on straightaways is dumb, but I like the idea of the amount of boost you get being based on skill rather than how long you can hold down a button. As such, I will always prefer the old blue sparks implementation to the new.

[Sno]

I'm really not sure. If I have you on my 3DS friends list though, I'd be down for a race or two sometime. Now that I've finished up Mirror Mode, I'm looking for some real people to race against. While I didn't win every single race, I did get gold on every cup on the very first try. It's kinda easy. Still, after the super disappointing Wii MK, I'm very happy that the series seems back on track.

EDIT: Also, snaking in general is fine, I suppose, but I've always found it beside the point of the game. It tends to ruin it for those who are in it for just a fun, light, racing experience. That said, I do like the analogue stick activated blue sparks. I wish Nintendo could find a way to have it so you can only activate on a turn but it is still dependent on stick-shaking. Doing it on straightaways is dumb, but I like the idea of the amount of boost you get being based on skill rather than how long you can hold down a button. As such, I will always prefer the old blue sparks implementation to the new.

There's certainly still a measure of skill in the hold-to-charge blue sparks implementation. I mean, the sharper your turn is, the faster it charges. So you can still kind of wiggle the stick back and forth to charge up faster on shallower turns, it just ends up being largely impractical to actually try and snake through the straightaways when you could just be getting boosts off the jumps.

It really seems to work well, i like it.

The other system just didn't work. I don't know if you played MKDS online at all, but it was totally unplayable after a while. There were so many people snaking through those courses, they'd be into their third lap when you've barely finished your first. If you were trying to play that game against anybody who was willing to exploit drift boosting in that way, the whole game just totally fell apart.

You can argue "Well if you're playing with friends it's fine" and you'd be right, it is. I don't think that excuses such a huge balance issue though, especially with the growing emphasis on online stuff in this series, so i'm glad they tried to fix it.

Anyways, we should swap friend codes or maybe setup an MK7 community or something.

[Boris Stoke]

Picked this up after being horribly disappointed to not have received it for Christmas.

It's good!

But it's also really strange. I've been playing for a while and I haven't unlocked ANY characters. It's weird enough that the starting roster is so small. Where is Wario? WHERE IS HE?

[Sno]

Picked this up after being horribly disappointed to not have received it for Christmas.

It's good!

But it's also really strange. I've been playing for a while and I haven't unlocked ANY characters. It's weird enough that the starting roster is so small. Where is Wario? WHERE IS HE?

It sounds like a lot of the unlocks are back-loaded on the 150cc courses and a lot of other later-game conditions.

Anyways, i've spent a few hours with it, and the online in this is really, really quite good.

I've been so used to seeing Nintendo's online games top out at four players, seeing eight players with no latency seems crazy. The recent players list is handled well, the communities feature is really awesome, it is a surprisingly progressive outing to see from Nintendo proper. (Still no voice chat, unless it's only in friend matches or something.)

The Mario Kart channel thing is weird, i don't really understand what it's doing.

[miffy495]

Picked this up after being horribly disappointed to not have received it for Christmas.

It's good!

But it's also really strange. I've been playing for a while and I haven't unlocked ANY characters. It's weird enough that the starting roster is so small. Where is Wario? WHERE IS HE?

Wario unlocks when you beat (I believe) the Flower Cup on 150cc. There are 8 character unlocks, one for each cup on the 150cc level. Nothing aside from kart upgrades for collecting coins until you get to that level, I'm afraid. Also, once you beat all 8 150cc cups, you unlock Mirror mode, but after beating all 8 of those there were no unlocks for any of them. Poo.

[Sno]

There's probably a few final unlocks for three-starring all of the cups on each class, but the requirements for that extra gradient of completion seem to be different than normal. In the past, didn't you just have to finish each individual race in 1st? I've done that, but sometimes still ended up with only two stars.

[miffy495]

I thought it was based on how many coins you ended up with, but who knows really.

[Sno]

So there's some really bad Lakitu revival glitches in Mario Kart 7, where Lakitu can restore you to the wrong portion of the track after a crash.

In most of the bugs, it requires you have the right item and make a difficult jump, and even then it will then only gain you a few seconds of an advantage. So it's dumb, people are exploiting it, but doesn't currently seem particularly gamebreaking.

Though there's an incredibly simple one on Maka Wuhu that lets you skip more than half of the track. So don't pick Maka Wuhu if you play online, i guess.

You know, and because Nintendo doesn't believe in patches, it will never be fixed.

[Justin Leego]

So who else has still got Mario Kart 7? How about some races?