Mario Kart 8 is the best entry to the franchise in a long time.
Mario Kart 8 focuses on racing, and puts the emphasis on speed. Everything in this iteration has been refined to get you around the both gorgeous and creatively designed tracks as quickly as possible. There is a lot to talk about here, so let's started!
The Good
The new anti gravity track segments allow for not only some very visually interesting set pieces, but they also bring about a paradigm shift with regard to how you think about engaging other karts: bumping another kart while in anti gravity mode will cause you both to receive a boost! This requires you to carefully consider when and where to bump other players as you want to be the only one who benefits from the boost.
Other mechanics that return in Mario Kart 8 include drafting, motorcycles, kart customization, gliding, jump boosts, and coins. While no single one of these is a huge game defining mechanic, I really enjoy how diverse the game play feels as a whole with all of them working together.
Another great refinement is that items in Mario Kart 8 have been significantly tweaked to favor racing over pure random mayhem. All of the offensive items have either been slightly nerfed or had their frequency decreased, while all defensive items have been slightly buffed.
However, the best parts of Mario Kart 8 are the tracks! All of the new tracks in Mario Kart 8 are absolutely amazing; they are as visual stimulating as they are mechanically engaging. Gone are the long boring straight aways or single set piece maps of previous games; Mario Kart 8 tracks are tightly packed with corners and densely filled with interactive environments. Nintendo has even broken precedent and even taken the liberty of updating the legacy tracks, adding both new mechanics and visual flare to the old environments; these new versions are definitely the definitive version of all the tracks available.
The Bad
It seems as though they almost forgot to put battle mode into the game, as now it is just racing around the pre-existing tracks with balloons. Unfortunately that really is all that there is to say about the subject. The good news is that what Mario Kart 8 lacks in local multi player death match, it more than makes up for with online multi player racing.
The Verdict
As you can tell from the size of the good when compared to the bad, I think this is a great game. The entire Mario Kart experience seems very well refined and heavily polished. The game as a whole is faster than it's previous iterations, the top speed is higher, the damage recovery quicker, even Lakitu chips in by helping you recover more swiftly than before.
While many recent Nintendo games may have been lacking innovation, Mario Kart 8 truly shines above the rest with it's truly amazing track design. There simply a plethora of creatively on display in every single one of the new courses, and even the remakes have been updated in fun and meaningful ways.
Mario Kart 8 is simply a wild ride, and I highly recommend that you take it for a spin!
Mario Kart 8 earns a score of Zero Qs. *
...but if I had to give it a number, it would be 9/10
Game on,
Tom
* F***ing awesome; we highly recommend it! It might not be perfect, but there is nothing that we can seriously complain about. We really enjoyed it, and we think you will too!
Learn more about the QQ Review scale.