Mario Kart 8 is the latest installment in Nintendo’s 22 year old go kart racing franchise, and it is still as much fun now as it was when they just started. The game has taken the most essential parts of the previous editions, and made it a whole lot better, the graphics are great, the turns are sharper, and the karts go faster, making it a very enjoyable game to play.
In Mario Kart 8, you can unlock the kart parts and characters quickly, recover quickly with Lakitu, and add new items to throw at your opponents, like the Boomerang Flower, and Piranha Plant. Unfortunately for players like me who usually come from the back to win races, the Blue Shell has finally been neutralized, there is a new but rare item called the Super Horn, which stops all shells in their tracks, which will make it harder to steal a win.
There is another improvement in the game called the antigravity transformation, they can be used to your advantage when navigating a sharp curve, but can also be a disadvantage, because it can give your opponent a speed boost if you bump them. A lot of the tracks in the game allow the antigravity transformations, but other tracks, like the retro tracks require some old fashion kart racing skills.
You can use up to 30 characters in this game, and you have a lot of game play options to choose from, from single player, two player split screens, three to four player modes, and the online mode which supports 12 players.
The only knock on Mario Kart 8 is the Battle Mode, because Nintendo decided not to use the old tracks that fans are familiar with, and added new tracks which are very similar to the regular tracks in the game.
Mario Kart 8 is still the best in the series, which is saying a lot, because there have been some great Mario Kart games in the past. Once you get your friends together to start racing, it is a hard game to put down.
