![]() ![]() All the usual favourites return including bananas, red and green shells, invincibility stars and go faster mushrooms and they are joined by new additions such as the fire flower, a mainstay of the platforming series making its karting debut (Mario and Luigi’s unique character weapon in Double Dash!! doesn’t count as that was just a fireball) giving you a few seconds to throw flames forwards or backwards. Of course mastery of the weapons remains paramount as failure to do so can cost even a skilled player. Once you’ve mastered drifting it will become an obsession as you strive to make the best use of the technique possible to gain that tiny advantage over your competitors. Now you have to put much more strategy and forethought into your drifting to reap the rewards of the stronger boost which can only really be achieved on corners of ninety degrees or more. This has been done to eliminate snaking, a technique not intended by the devs that experts at finger gymnastics abused in Mario Kart DS, which slightly spoiled that game’s online multiplayer. There’s a wooden bridge that features a couple of branching paths one of which can save you time but is very narrow to negotiate that the game’s heavy handling put me off from ever using but I made a beeline for every time in Mario Kart 7 which makes it easy.ĭrifting has been tweaked so that boost sparks appear far more quickly when turning into a corner than powersliding sideways. The best way I can illustrate this is by pointing to a particular shortcut in Dino Dino Jungle, one of the retro tracks included here. Much of that fact is down to the gameplay, which is tighter than ever and empowers a skilled player to feel like they are in total control like the series has never managed before. One day I’ll get round to downloading it but until I do I can say with confidence that Mario Kart 7 rules. To clarify that bold statement, it’s the best in the series that I have played, which is every one but the trailblazing SNES original Super Mario Kart, a game that still commands massive respect among those who were there to experience it in the early nineties. The good news is it didn’t need to to take its place as the best game in the series to date. That game remains my favourite in the genre and while I would have liked Mario Kart 7 to finally offer something similar I never expected it to. Rare’s Diddy Kong Racing, one of many imitators of the franchise introduced a tremendous adventure mode that gave the racing the kind of depth, context, lifespan and replayability that Mario Kart has never achieved. The lack of single player depth is something I’ve always rather taken issue with in the Mario Kart series. Other than Grand Prix runs and time trials there’s little for lone players to get stuck into but the real value is found in the multiplayer. ![]() It’s a tried and tested formula that still works. You get ahead of the pack by exploiting cunning shortcuts, drifting round corners for a boost and making strategic use of randomly acquired power-ups. ![]() You know the drill, choose from a host of Mushroom Kingdom regulars to race around various colourful and creative courses in 50, 100 or 150cc. Its success was a foregone conclusion, as was its ability to ship hardware, more important is its status as the best of its kind Nintendo have produced. The latest in probably the most popular series of spin-offs in video games and the first to reflect its position in the chronology by sticking a number in the title is a watershed publication for many of the handheld’s features including its online play. One of two late 2011 releases that the 3DS badly needed to bring its underwhelming sales figures up (the other being Super Mario 3D Land) Mario Kart 7 was a timely release for Nintendo but not just as a system seller. ![]()
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