Mario Kart 8

Athrun888 wrote:

I can't comment on the direct but all this talk of baby characters instead of actual characters is depressing news, a few are fine but it sounds like half the roster are baby characters.    

5/30 are baby characters. 2 more are metal.

And seven more are Koopalings.  That's 14/30 characters that could have been replaced by, ooh, I dunno...

...Wiggler, Petey Piranha, King Boo, Bowser Jr., Diddy Kong, Birdo, Kamek, Monty Mole, Toadsworth, E. Gadd, FAWFUL, and an outside-the-box suggestion.  I saw Monita in a mocked-up Internet picture.

The Mario series has a great and varied line-up of characters.  There are five popular Mario franchise characters in my list above that have never taken the driving seat.  So the Koopalings, babies and metallics are wastes of space, and annoy me more the more I think about them.

I know it's nit-picking.  I know it's moaning about a game that is almost guaranteed to be great.  It may well be the best Mario Kart ever, mixing MK7's gliders with split-screen and twelve-driver-online multiplayer.  In fact, that's quite likely.  But that's no excuse for lumbering us with Pink Gold Peach!

Hopefully there'll be more characters as unlockables and my rant above will have been a waste of my own time. Not much room for them on the screen, though.

PGP is just there for Drunka to use online,

But just thought with 12 player online the whole forum can play together all as babies & koopalings.

Balladeer wrote:

I saw Monita in a mocked-up Internet picture.

I saw someone on here mention Baby Funky Kong, and... well...

40 minute queues in Japan for a demo. The hype is real!

Quote :

but Moo Moo Meadows at the very least seems to be a mistake

Blasphemy!

I admit it is odd to see battles like that but it could turn out to be a refreshing change from arena battles, though having the choice to do both would be nice.

The_Jaster wrote:

Quote :

but Moo Moo Meadows at the very least seems to be a mistake

Blasphemy!

I admit it is odd to see battles like that but it could turn out to be a refreshing change from arena battles, though having the choice to do both would be nice.

I'm sold on this by the new graphics alone.

That level of hype can really only be a good thing and I hope it translates to that in the West as well. MK8 is ideally going to pull Wii U out of its slump and hopefully bring more third party devs onside.

I'm so hyped up for it though that I've even booked a week off of work at the start of June to play as much of this as possible.

I've never understood the need to change battle mode, it was pretty much perfect in 64 and then extra modes in Double Dash made it all the more enjoyable, no need to mess about with it after that point really. I can sort of understand the hate for the Koopalings being included but they don't bother me too much as they all have their own character to them.

Mario Kart TV is an companion app. for PCs and iPhones. "Players will be able to browse race highlight videos uploaded to the service from the game's own Mario Kart TV mode, as well as hint videos uploaded by Nintendo and leaderboard information." More one for you time-triallers, I expect.

We have a review people.

masofdas wrote:

We have a review people.

Blimey. They gave it that? (read article) cool...

(I know, I did a bad)

A question: Does anyone know how much Nintendo are going to charge for the download version?


As I have Super Mario Kart, I get £5 off this, but Amazon are selling this for £39.99. Having it on the hard drive is a bonus but not a deal-breaker.

If it's anything like other retail games on the shop, it'll be £49.99.

The soundtrack for this really is phenomenal. The amount of times I've listened to the main theme alone has surprised me, and the live music is fantastic, fitting the themes of the tracks where needed. Nintendo have also hired great talent for the big band. And there's music like Electrodome which still captures the sillier feel of Mario Kart's wackier tracks. Ace.

Jimbob wrote:

(I know, I did a bad)

A question: Does anyone know how much Nintendo are going to charge for the download version?


As I have Super Mario Kart, I get £5 off this, but Amazon are selling this for £39.99. Having it on the hard drive is a bonus but not a deal-breaker.

Been thinking this myself, wish they would reveal pricing before Monday since I don't want to order my game too late (I remember GAME dispatching 7 really early).

Reviews embargo seems to be up. A big fat to Nintendo World Report (who are they anyway?), and another to Nintendo apparently continuing to prioritise online over split-screen. A shocking battle mode and noticeable frame rate judders in four-players? Booooooooooooo.

Surely prioritising online is a good thing.

...Come again? I don't think I understand you. At all.

You said BOO Nintendo seem to be pritoising online over spliscreen. To me that's a good thing as when are we going to play spliscreen really apart from Christmas with are family's but otherwise it's going to be online with you guys mainly.

Even if I play split-screen one time to every ten times I play online, split-screen is... I'm just going to post what I put over on CVG.

Balladeer wrote:

It's just not as fun as having your friends in the room with you, shouting, screaming, swearing, amiably punching, not-so-amiably punching, cheering, laughing and lots-of-other-things-ing through the courses. Mario Kart has always been at its best when there are four people in one room.

Online is just less fun. I... I didn't even think there was an argument about that, at least not where Mario Kart was concerned.  

No argument about local multi player being more fun, one of the reasons when I do see a mate of mine the N64, Cube or Dreamcast comes out.

But what can they really do with local as long as split-screen is in it and GP mode then surely that's fine, maybe 5 players like sonic racing but what else.

With online there's a lot you can do and from what you guy's have said MKWii has a decent online following, so if this can be improved on that with voice chat, so I can shout you scottish @#%& to Jas after he blue shell's me that's great as after winning all the GP's in SP this is where I will be spending all my MK8 time.

Just... not make it bad. Make it good, then concentrate on the online.

To be fair, Mr. Scullion says that the split-screen is nowhere near as juddery as in MKWii. But the battle mode was still obviously designed with twelve-player online in mind first and foremost, with the result that it's apparently dung in split-screen.

Just watched IGN & GT's reviews of it Battle Mode does sound a lot of crap, both of them weren't that happy with the online actually as there's no chat unless with friends and to set up friends games you need to make a room & contact everyone by some means as there's no invite option or anything like that.

They both brought up split screen and seemed to have no problems with it apart from only 4 players not 5 and only runs at 30fps not 60fps like SP or 2-Player split screen but still looks great.

If you think online MP is less fun then you're doing it wrong.   

masofdas wrote:

With online there's a lot you can do and from what you guy's have said MKWii has a decent online following, so if this can be improved on that with voice chat, so I can shout you scottish @#%& to Jas after he blue shell's me that's great as after winning all the GP's in SP this is where I will be spending all my MK8 time.

Sadly the voice chat is only allowed in the pre race lobby if I remember correctly, this is where skype comes in handy though.

Au contraire, Jas, you're doing local MP wrong!