The Official Mario Kart thread

Since I haven't seen one of these yet,I thought it was time to put a up a thread dedicated to THE kart racing series,mostly because the first of them Super Mario Kart pretty much made the genre

Here tropers that double as karters when offline or on WFC [in the cases of Mario Kart DS and Wii] can share just what they like about this series

Personally now that since Double Dash they've done away with the standard karts,tricks to avoid bananas,and encouraged Snaking I'm in for Rainbow Road,Bowser Castle,and of course chucking Red Shells everywhere. Also the Epic Fails and Epic Wins have increased thanks to the Blue Shell and generously placed item boxes

Now that Mario Kart 7 should be out soon,this can also work well as a speculation thread. Hopefully this will be the game where Vanilla Lake 2,Luigi Raceway,Ribbon Road,Dino Dino Jungle,Mario Circuit,and DK Summit all get remade.

And the best track ever made is still DK's Jungle Parkway

But lets try not to turn this into a Flame War

I prefer Airship Fortress or Banshee Boardwalk. The Rainbow Road ones, Tick Tock Clock, and Waluigi Pinball are all pretty funny too. Or perhaps Maple Treeway and Koopa Cape! Or the GBA Luigi Circuit, Sky Garden, and Broken Pier! N64 and the Wii Bowser Castles!

Gah! I have too many favorites to count!

This series is responsible for 80% of the swear words I've ever said.

Motherfucking blue shells.

Blue Shells did not fill me with rage, but with a little sadness when one headed my way. Until Mario Kart Wii. Then they filled me with    RAGE. SO MUCH RAGE!!   

I remember this one race online where this one guy hacked his item slot with infinite Blue Shells, and kept launching them repeatedly throughout the race. It was frustrating, yet hilarious at the same time.

edited 6th Aug '11 10:20:49 PM by Marioguy128

See that was another perk of the Game Boy version,the blue shell was actually a help since it ran on the ground and harmed everyone in the way and you could even outrun it with skill.It meant being in 8th could get you to first,instead of just being useless and if you were first you didn't have a 98% chance of getting hit.

By 98% I mean there are those 2 percents were it hits while your a star,or you mastered and perfectly timed a drift out of the explosion.

Also why did Bomb-Omb Battle get Put on a Bus? That was such a good battle mode

edited 9th Aug '11 12:23:39 PM by terlwyth

@ Beta Ray: Related.

@ Folt: I agree. Each title has a lot of great tracks. I'd love to see Cheese Land and Ribbon Road from Super Circuit be included as Retro Cup tracks.

Personally, I think most of the items introduced in MK Wii need to be shafted. The Blue Shell is bad enough by itself, but POW Block and Thundercloud spam create too huge a shift in the momentum of the game that tends to make it less fun and skill-based and more annoying and luck-based. But perhaps that's just me.

it was alway luck based...

Surely as it went going on it each game was even more luck based than the previous one, but it was ALWAYS like that.

Um. At this rate I wonder how Mario kart 8347 will play like.

edited 9th Aug '11 2:16:42 PM by NONAMEGIVEN

Yeah, but most of the luck has to do with whether or not the Rubberband AI will kick in... and it always does if you're in the lead, so you can expect a blue shell to be on your tail soon after.

Um...

Maybe its me, but I rarely get hit with the blue shells in the games, and Its not like I am not in the first place at all.

In fact, I believe than I have been hit by them more ofthme by the EXPLOTION RADIOUS they cause, rather than because I was in first place and I get hit with it, lol.

But yeah... useless item is useless. It works alot better in 64/GBA IMO.

Hopefully Mario Kart 7 adds a "no item" mode.

Agreed

Well at least coins are back

I'm personally excited by the addition of gliders and underwater racing.

Anything that makes the game more like Diddy Kong Racing (the original N64 version) is fine with me.

I never liked coins, to be honest. Thanks a lot, Super Circuit.

I'm going to take a guess and say that unlocking the Extra Cups were a real pain for you?

I don't have anything against coins, and yes, I'm getting some Diddy Kong Racing vibes myself. Which is kinda cool as it's probably the only game I've played that I enjoyed despite it's status as kinda unfinished.

Blue shells. Why do they hate me so? Every time I manage to maintain the lead for a decent amount of time, they always ruin everything...

That was part of the problem, but just how they were implemented made the game frustrating. Just so much as bumping into another racer made you lose coins, and having no coins meant that any racer could cause you to spin out if you touched them, regardless of weight class. Now, say, if the coins did something like how the Wumpa Fruit in Crash Team Racing/Nitro Kart/Tag Team Racing juiced up your weapons if you collected ten of them or how you could buy powerups with coins in Konami Krazy Racers, then maybe I wouldn't mind their inclusion. Or maybe if you lost coins only if you were attacked by a shell or ran over a banana peel or something to that reasonable effect. Perhaps I didn't notice it back then because I was younger, but did collecting coins even do anything if you collected them (besides unlocking the courses from Super Mario Kart?)

edited 10th Aug '11 3:51:56 PM by X2X

If I recall correctly, collecting coins in Super Mario Kart increased your speed a bit.

Was it enough to actually make a difference?

And as said above, you won't skid out as long as you have them.

edited 10th Aug '11 3:58:24 PM by Folt

If I remember correctly, having 10 coins can boost your speed by 1.5x or something like that.

I think 10 coins was the max speed possible in those games.

So, kind of like Diddy Kong Racing then. Any extra coins afterwards means you can take more hits and not suffer loss of max speed boost.

I am really glad that Mario Kart 7 is taking cues from Diddy Kong Racing.

To make things even better, it's being developed by Retro Studios! Retro seems to be on its way to becoming to Nintendo what Rare was to the Big N in the N64 era.

edited 10th Aug '11 7:24:46 PM by Zennistrad

I really hope Retro Studios doesn't make the computer cheat. That was the worst part about Mario Kart Wii, and BLUE SHELL BLUE SHELL BLUE SHELL BLUE SHELL ARRRRRGH!

I thought Retro Studios was only lending some materials from Donkey Kong Country Returns for a new Donkey Kong racetrack.