Date played: December 10th
Platform: 3DS
Time played: 50 minutes
Session fun rating: 7/10
I bought a new oven this weekend because my old one simply stopped working and was very old. After picking out a nice new oven (POWER ELEMENT), I stopped by Gamestop in the same mall and grabbed Mario Kart 7.
I have a long history with Mario Kart. In fact, Super Mario Kart (Mario Kart 1)is the game that got me to buy my first system with my own money back when I was a 12 year old kid. I played that one for hours and hours with my brother. We spent all our time doing versus and time trials, no balloon fighting bullshit here. In fact, we were so fast on one of the tracks that some of the time trial times were exactly the same.
Then we moved on to Mario Kart 64 (Mario Kart 2). We didn't like it as much as most people did. We preferred Diddy Kong Racing and Crash Team Racing. It was still a fun game but it's the one I spent the least amount of time with. I played Super Circuit (Mario Kart 3) briefly for GBA on an emulator and while it was fun, playing on an emulator just isn't the same.
The one I spent the most time with is Double Dash (Mario Kart 4) for Gamecube. To this day, I still think it's the best Mario Kart (we'll see if 7 can best it!). Again, I played a lot of multiplayer but this time, it was with my girlfriend. The two person karts and the fun tracks really hooked us for a long time.
Mario Kart DS (Mario Kart 5) was a disaster. While technically, it's a fine game and should be the best of the bunch, it was also the first with online play and the infamous snaking technique ruined it completely for me. Then Mario Kart Wii (Mario Kart 6) came out. I ignored it completely for the longest time. I just didn't enjoy playing on Wii, I didn't care for the plastic wheel, I thought bikes would be a dumb idea and I thought stunts were even worse. Then I played it. It's actually a really good Mario Kart game with fun tracks, good online multiplayer and lots of karts and characters.
Cue Mario Kart 7, the first to have a number in it's title! I only played single player to unlock new karts and characters before heading online. I also chose to try out all the retro tracks before trying the new ones so I did the four 50cc retro cups. So far, I'm impressed but not entertained. The best part of the game so far is it's graphics and performance. This game looks better than any Wii game, runs at 60 FPS and has beautiful and easy on the eyes 3D.
The boring part is that it's single player Mario Kart. I really wish they would let us unlock all this stuff online and in multiplayer, like Call of Duty basically. Single player is boring as fuck. I never dropped below second place during a race and I never got any good items of course.
Speaking of items, there is a cool new item, the tanooki tail. It acts as a sort of shield I guess where you can swat away dangerous shells and such. Another cool addition is that there are three parts to a kart now, all of which are customizable. There is the body, the wheels and the glider, so that's cool. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, there's a motherfucking handglider in this game. On specific jumps, the kart will spawn a nice wing that allows the player to glide in the air for a short period.
Platform: 3DS
Time played: 50 minutes
Session fun rating: 7/10
I bought a new oven this weekend because my old one simply stopped working and was very old. After picking out a nice new oven (POWER ELEMENT), I stopped by Gamestop in the same mall and grabbed Mario Kart 7.
I have a long history with Mario Kart. In fact, Super Mario Kart (Mario Kart 1)is the game that got me to buy my first system with my own money back when I was a 12 year old kid. I played that one for hours and hours with my brother. We spent all our time doing versus and time trials, no balloon fighting bullshit here. In fact, we were so fast on one of the tracks that some of the time trial times were exactly the same.
Then we moved on to Mario Kart 64 (Mario Kart 2). We didn't like it as much as most people did. We preferred Diddy Kong Racing and Crash Team Racing. It was still a fun game but it's the one I spent the least amount of time with. I played Super Circuit (Mario Kart 3) briefly for GBA on an emulator and while it was fun, playing on an emulator just isn't the same.
The one I spent the most time with is Double Dash (Mario Kart 4) for Gamecube. To this day, I still think it's the best Mario Kart (we'll see if 7 can best it!). Again, I played a lot of multiplayer but this time, it was with my girlfriend. The two person karts and the fun tracks really hooked us for a long time.
Mario Kart DS (Mario Kart 5) was a disaster. While technically, it's a fine game and should be the best of the bunch, it was also the first with online play and the infamous snaking technique ruined it completely for me. Then Mario Kart Wii (Mario Kart 6) came out. I ignored it completely for the longest time. I just didn't enjoy playing on Wii, I didn't care for the plastic wheel, I thought bikes would be a dumb idea and I thought stunts were even worse. Then I played it. It's actually a really good Mario Kart game with fun tracks, good online multiplayer and lots of karts and characters.
Cue Mario Kart 7, the first to have a number in it's title! I only played single player to unlock new karts and characters before heading online. I also chose to try out all the retro tracks before trying the new ones so I did the four 50cc retro cups. So far, I'm impressed but not entertained. The best part of the game so far is it's graphics and performance. This game looks better than any Wii game, runs at 60 FPS and has beautiful and easy on the eyes 3D.
The boring part is that it's single player Mario Kart. I really wish they would let us unlock all this stuff online and in multiplayer, like Call of Duty basically. Single player is boring as fuck. I never dropped below second place during a race and I never got any good items of course.
Speaking of items, there is a cool new item, the tanooki tail. It acts as a sort of shield I guess where you can swat away dangerous shells and such. Another cool addition is that there are three parts to a kart now, all of which are customizable. There is the body, the wheels and the glider, so that's cool. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, there's a motherfucking handglider in this game. On specific jumps, the kart will spawn a nice wing that allows the player to glide in the air for a short period.
