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Tech which makes Sense

Mario Kart 7 is essentially Mario Kart Wii without the bikes. Which is a shame, because I loved the bikes! However, it is a good game. It’s not hard to take an already good game and make it portable, but there’s not much to offer when the series has already offered so much. However, this is not the problem, as it does not put much effort into offering anything new.

Single player

Before I get into the news, let me do a summary of the game. It is essentially an arcade style racer. It always has been and, it seems, always will be. The individual player takes place in 8 different cups with 4 tracks on each. Half of the tracks are remastered tracks from previous games and the other half are brand new. You will race between 7 other runners in a competition to get first place in each cup. Very simple.

You have access to 3 different speeds that determine the difficulty and an additional unlockable mirror version of the hardest difficulty. The formula is tried and tested, although it may seem a bit dated, there really isn’t any successful competition for Mario Kart. It has not changed because it does what it does and does it well.

The game is fun, you can play it quickly for 15 minutes and have fun without investing hours of your time. However, if you are looking for a deep broker, this is not for you.

How to play

The gameplay is quite hectic, the way it is structured is that no matter what position you are in, you still have a chance to be first. This is due to items that are randomly given to you in the race. The worse your position, the better the articles. Again, that’s nothing new for MK veterans, and you’ll find that the new items aren’t game-changing at all. So let’s go over what’s really new; turn controls, fire flower, tanooki tail, slide sections, underwater sections, coins and vehicle customization.

Gyro Controls are a novelty; similar to the Wii, except you use your entire 3DS as a steering wheel and your view changes to first person. It can be entertaining to play this way, but it is more or less fun.

The new elements that are the Tanooki Tail and the Fire Flower are not particularly special. The tail allows you to attack nearby opponents and deflect items, while the fire flower allows you to shoot fireballs for a limited time. However, there is another interesting element, known as “7”. It offers you seven elements at a time that will surround your kart, which you can use at your leisure. It’s definitely a cool novelty, but that’s all it really is.

The slide and submarine sections do not provide any real changes to the main gameplay of the game. I can’t pin down why, but the whole concept doesn’t feel new at all. It may have been integrated so seamlessly that the experience is that seamless, or is it just a gimmick. Nonetheless, it’s still a nice feature.

Another new feature, for better or for worse, is that the coins are scattered around the track. Yes, veterans will remember that there were Super Mario Kart coins for the SNES, but I can’t remember what they do. In this game, however, they are used to unlock new vehicle parts and speed up your vehicle. Some may enjoy this, but it doesn’t matter much to me. I preferred to unlock my items for achievements; you are now given a new part every time you collect more than 100 coins (yes you can’t choose what you unlock) and only characters are unlocked within the GP. Making the GP somewhat redundant as you can earn coins online. However, making you earn 20,000 coins to complete the game is ridiculous to me.

This brings me to the next new feature, personalizing your vehicle. As I mentioned earlier, you unlock parts with coins. These parts are divided into 3 categories: the body, the wheels, and the glider. They all affect multiple stats, allowing you to mix and match to get the stats you want. This is an interesting feature, but what it doesn’t explain very well either is that your character’s weight class also affects your vehicle; There are 17 characters that are divided into different weight classes. You can easily beat the single player section with any combination you want, but unfortunately not all stats are the same, so you can and will find yourself unlocking a lot of useless parts that you will never use until you get something you like.

Multiplayer

This is where Mario Kart 7 shines, and where the series always has. You can choose between battle or VS, you can play online or locally and accumulate virtual reality points and coins by playing multiplayer too!

If you’ve ever wanted to know how good you are at Mario Kart, online is the place to do it, and the replay becomes almost endless due to this feature. Although you can’t randomly add people you play with, or talk to them (come on, this is Nintendo, you should know that they won’t allow it), it’s still fun to leave real people down to earth as they act very differently than the AI.

If you want to get this game, you won’t get it for the GP, because online is where it is, and if you have friends to play with; Even better. There is nothing like kicking butt and being competitive with the people you know. There is nothing new here, but nothing is missing either. If you enjoyed the experience on the Wii, you will also enjoy it here.

Final comments

There are a few features that may be worth going into detail about, but they’re all debatable because you either love Mario Kart or you don’t. For those of you who haven’t played it before, start here, it’s friendly and has a vibrant online community that you can play with anywhere, anytime.

It’s a bundle of fun in a little card, where its biggest flaw is that it doesn’t offer anything new.

7/10

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