When Mario Kart 7 arrived, though, it had returned to its epic form.
So, to say the very least, I had a lot of hope for Mario Kart 8 when it was announced via Nintendo Direct. Quite frankly, it didn’t disappoint.
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Let me just highlight a few points on my very brief demo of the 2014 title.
– The gameplay seemed to be the same speed as Mario Kart 7. It felt like a Mario Kart game that I wanted to play. The pacing and the actual racing moments were very much intact. So, yay!
– One of the cool new things I was introduced to in my brief demo was how Luigi’s vehicle changed from car to hovercraft/magnetic wheeled flying device. Why would it do this, you ask? Ever seen F-Zero on the Gamecube? Did you like it when the levels flipped upside down? AH! Now you got it. The level I was playing on flipped upside down and the car changed with it to account for the flip. The beautiful (and knowledgeable) demo helper made sure to point out the upside down environment I had just come from before the great change. It was so seamless of a change that it didn’t slow down the racing one bit, which was quite cool.
Once the environment flipped back over, Luigi changed over to a hang glider, which brought me back down to a right side up track, while trying to avoid columns of goobas on the way down to the road. After that, I just kept racing until I finished 4th. I will say the track and the detailed environments around the race track were quite neat to look at, but what else would you expect from the Big N?
One point of interest with the game is that you can either use the analog sticks to control the steering of your vehicle or you can choose to use the Wii U gamepad as your steering wheel (moving it to drive with). I chose the analog sticks, but I could see how well the Wii U gamepad would have worked.
Anyway, I can’t wait to see more of Mario Kart 8 in the coming months. Hopefully we get a bit more info on tracks and what other goodies are planned for it.