|
|
|
A Nintendo community by the fans!
|
|
|
∧ |
Forum main |
|
|
Mario Kart 8 Discussion (Nintendo Wii U) [game]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
9.14/10 from 37 user ratings |
|
Welcome to the official discussion thread for Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U!
To start, please add this game to your log, add it to your collection (if applicable), and (when you are ready) rate it using the link above!
|
This May, one game will define MULTIPLAYER FUN on Wii U. That game, is Mario Kart 8!
Mario Kart has been a Nintendo staple since it's SNES debut over two decades ago. Only two Nintendo products neglected to have an entry and each entry that has existed is a charming title in someone's eyes. Entries like Double Dash on Gamecube helped push the boundaries of creativity and uniqueness, while more recent titles have continued to refine a core experience. Mario Kart 8 seeks to continue that trend with it's jaw-dropping HD visuals, Anti-gravity racing, and incredibly well-designed tracks. With all the characters known, the deep customization possibilities to each individual racer, the classic 32-total track count... there's so much to discuss and share and debate. Reviews are just coming in now and while I'll post a few below but they're not all gushing with pride. User Stephen recently made a thread aiming to have a more comprehensive list of reviews available. So... Are you impressed with the Mario Kart TV feature, excited for the Super Horn, or bummed at how battle mode has changed? Share your thoughts on the game below, now, upon release, and well after! Below you'll find a list of Nintendo Network IDs as compiled by our own Mop It Up! Be sure your friends are added to your console! Mop It Up's NNID List of Mario Kart 8 Players
(Negative World Username) - (NNID) Abdooooo - Abdooooo Anand - AnandX anon_mastermind - Mastermind85 Brick - Brick20 Brook - Ice-Insignia canonj - canonj chrisbg99 - chrisbg99 chrisguy - chrisguy Cooliocuneo - Cooliocuneo Cryojin - Cryojin Cubed777 - C77777 DeputyVanHalen - DeputyVanHalen DrFinkelstein - a00link Earendil - Ear3ndil EagleC83 - EagleC83 gamewizard65 - gamewizard65 Guillaume - Pandareus Hero_of_Hyrule - Deku_Scrub Jargon - Hendrik -JKR- - JKRiki kgtennispro - kgtennispro kriswright - kriswright legendofalex - Alistair ludist210 - Ludist210 Mop it up - Mop_it_up Nate38 - VictorVonPlugman Octorockin - NoseyTengu ploot - Realploot PogueSquadron - PogueSquadron pokepal148 - pokepal148 Rebonack - rebonack Scrawnton - Scrawnton SeVeN CDN - SeVeNCDN Smerd - Smerd20 Stratos - Chronocast stephen - stephen087 Super_Conzo - Super_Conzo thefly - LeaveLuck2Heaven TheOldManFromZelda - OldManFromZelda TK_Thunder - The_Trish Tranquilo - Arponare VofEscaflowne - VofEscaflowne
Reviews Eurogamer - 10/10
Game Informer - 9.25/10 Destructoid - 9.0/10 IGN - 9.0/10 Joystiq - 4.5/5 Nintendo Life - 9/10 Polygon - 9.0/10
GameTrailers - 8.6/10 Gamespot - 8.0/10 Giant Bomb - 4/5
NintendoWorldReport.com - 7.5/10URL to share (right click and copy)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
05/16/14, 03:52 Edited: 06/28/14, 23:37
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Zero said:@-JKR-
Still, it's interesting that Mario Kart has trained us to think that we deserve to come from behind. Like, why should that naturally be the case? In most every other multiplayer game I play (besides Mario Party), if you fall behind, you're probably going to lose. But the problem is in Mario Kart 8 "falling behind" is so much a matter of luck. If you start out and aren't in first, and the people around you get 3 shells and you hit them, you're suddenly in the rear-middle of the pack. Then if the last place person got something to hit you, you're in dead last. And what could you have done about that? Nothing. No skill will stop that from happening. So now you're in last, and what can you get to help you out? Not a star, for sure, because that thing is GARBAGE now. Mega mushroom might get you back into 9th or 10th (where, by the way, you're back in range of the people who have close-range death weapons so you're probably getting hit). I've gotten a Bullet Bill once in the weeks I've owned the game. Mostly I get mushrooms. The issue I have is that before it was like you were wrecked if you got in first. It would be blue shells out the wazoo and people hated it. But now the people in 2nd and 3rd and 4th are so busy fighting the person in 1st just zooms away. The "pack" is the most dangerous place to be, not first. But that makes no sense to me. You shouldn't be punished for doing poorly when so much is based on luck. What sort of backwards nonsense is that? |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
So...kind of a funny story. I was playing this game with my wife last night, and she kept swerving back and forth across the track, and occasionally (read: mostly always) ended up driving off of the track and into the walls. Obviously, she never placed well in any of the races, and on top of all that, she complained of her hand getting sore while playing. After about three tracks in the Mushroom Cup were through, I was curious as to how this was all happening. I mean, Mario Kart isn't exactly the hardest game to play (we were doing the super-easy 50cc mode, too) and I had no idea why she was having so much trouble. This isn't even her first time playing this franchise. So, I decided to do some investigating. We backed out of multiplayer mode and I had her run a Time Trial by herself so I could see what in the world she was doing wrong. Turns out she really didn't know how to play. To start things off, she wasn't using the analog stick to steer on the Gamepad - she was using the d-pad. (!) And the pain in her fingers/thumb was due to the fact that she wasn't just pressing left or right to steer; she was also pressing the 'up' direction. Why? She thought it would make her go faster. Constantly pressing up was not only putting undue pressure on her thumb, but also made driving in a straight line nearly impossible since the d-pad is sensitive enough that even a slight rock to either side would register as a turn. And of course, the digital input of the d-pad made those turns HARD turns, rather than a subtle drift that can be done with the analog stick. So...yeah. After I explained that she should probably use the analog stick to steer instead, that pressing up didn't affect speed, AND to drive in a straight line she can just let go of the analog stick...she finally got the hang of it. She placed much better in the following races, and even got the hang of pressing the right trigger to do tricks off of ramps. Guess it just goes to show that we (or at least, I) can't expect anyone to just be able to pick-up-and-play Mario Kart. Apparently there are some things that we (as "gamers") just take for granted...but for those that wouldn't identify as a "gamer" there is still a learning curve. I felt we both learned something from the experience. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
As for the Bullet Bill, it's really rare in this game, which I don't think is a good thing for the 9-12th guys. I have gotten three of them, two when I was in 5th and one when I was 3rd. All three times, there were 12 players. That's insane! I plowed through the guy in first with the bullet, though I also got hit with it once in first meself. That is whack, I never got hit with a bullet when in first in other games. @GameDadGrant Yeah, I do find people tend to go for the D-pad first if I don't explain the controls. I guess its shape make it look more like something that controls the character on screen? But yeah, I've realised many years ago that we as longtime players tend to take our experience for granted, and don't realise that some things which are obvious to us due to our thousands of hours of playtime, are not obvious to newer players. In the case of Mario Kart, I find people having trouble grasping the concept of holding a button to drift. Nintendo must've figured this out when they added the auto-drift option to Mario Kart Wii, and people appreciated it. But now they've taken it out for some odd reason, and people are struggling to adjust. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
No amount of item management can protect you against waves of blue shells, bullet bills, stars and lightning bolts though. Still, I'll just have to disagree... I think I was pretty good at item management. Actually, whenever I played battle mode with NW people, I did much better than I did racing NW people. I think it might have been the NW Chicago meet-up where I dominated battle mode? I'm not saying battle mode item management is the same as racing item management, but I have the basic concepts down. And really couldn't I just throw that argument right back at you? I'm not experiencing the troubles you are, so you must not have learned the best way to utilize items in the new game? Not that I think that is the issue here.
I dunno. Generally speaking, I don't really buy into arguments that go along the lines of "you're not good enough to realize how bad this is", like how Brawl was considered terrible by some just because it wasn't as good for people at the highest levels as Melee was. In part because I don't think a game that is clearly meant to appeal to the mainstream has major issues if it works fine for the masses of gamers and only has serious issues at a high level of play. There are very few games that can be seriously competitive on a higher level out of box, which is why serious tournaments tend to have to set up specific rules to make things more balanced for higher level competitive play. I'm really not too concerned about whether a game is super balanced at a level of play that only like 2% of gamers will ever be at anyway. I just want something that works for me and my friends and family and such, as well as the people I get paired up with online who, it seems, are mostly at my level (I'm assuming Nintendo tries to pair you up with people at your level in some fashion?)
Then again, a lot of the issues involved in how different people feel more comfortable with different balances could be fixed if Nintendo would give more options for play in Mario Kart. This is one of the flaws of Mario Kart next to say... Smash Bros., the fact that you're mostly just stuck with the default item balance whether you like it or not. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
@Zero I think people exaggerate how common blue shells were, but there were a couple ways to dodge them, such as using a mushroom or going into a cannon. Bullet Bills travel in the middle of the road, so stay out of its predetermined path and you won't get hit by it. You can dodge stars pretty easily, they even come with a warning siren. The appearance of lightning can be predicted as well, though since it hits everyone, it isn't very damaging to any one person unless they were jumping over a gap. Not that previous games didn't have issues, I'd never argue that, but I felt there were more ways to deal with things in them. The blue shell is the only real item I felt needed some major tweaking, but even that felt better than this new game. You're right about my item management comment, that was a bit rude of me and I apologise. And it's true, you could say the same thing about people claiming this game has bad item balance. Even so, I don't feel like there is as much item management in this game. However, of course everyone's different, but I don't think it's just high-level play where people care about balance. Even my sister and friends have commented about how they feel the items aren't as good in previous games. They didn't talk about balance, but they said things like how the game is less exciting because there are less items, how they get hit more often because they have less defense, how coins are pointless, etc. So yeah, I think it's more than the top 2% who have issues with this game (I'm certainly not in the top 2%, ha ha), but it's a matter of preference of course. There is still some item management in this game but it has been reduced by the one-item system and the item distribution being almost completely random. There's no longer a reliable way to predict what item you might get from a box, nor what your opponents might get. There are less shortcuts to use with speed-boosting items, and the speed items themselves have been reduced in power, or even removed in the case of the Mega Mushroom. Lightning no longer appears on a timer and so it is a lot tougher to predict when it might appear. Trapping by placing bananas and green shells on boosters, ramps, and sharp turns is greatly reduced, since these items are better served as a shield. Typically, I find the best use of items is to play defensively. Gotta use the shells and bananas to block attacks, and once my item gets destroyed from an attack, I have to pray to the item gods that I don't get a coin as my next item and become completely defenseless. And if the guy behind me gets triple red shells, it's a guaranteed hit on me, if not two hits, assuming they don't suck at using them. Triple reds are this game's real blue shell. All that said though, I think the game's biggest balance issue is the coins. A player getting combo'd by a bunch of items results in losing all their coins, which then means their top speed is greatly reduced. It's a lot tougher to catch back up when everyone ahead is faster. Plus, the coin item is beyond useless, and is typically a death sentence. And just to make clear, I don't think the game is all luck or half luck, just more luck than previous games. I'd probably say previous games had about an 80/20 or 75/25 skill/luck ratio, and this one is about 70/30 or 65/35. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
∧ |
Forum main |
|
|