Mario Kart 7 back to the drawing board?

[killbot]

Lol I was just laughing at the 'random' comments, we all know they aren't random! If you lagging behind you get speedups and if you leading you get bananas...there is no randomness at all!

Indeed. And I have to say, despite the comments that the pickups turn the game into 'a lottery', when I play MK with friends the best players still win nine times out of ten. All the pickups tend to do is give the less skilled players a fighting chance of at least scoring some decent points so they don't end up getting bored of finishing last every time.

[Rm88]

My personal ranking:

DS > 7 > DD! > Wii > SNES > 64 >>>>>>> SC.

DS is just fantastic and won't be topped because they deliberately removed the old mini-turbo method. But still, I found 7 to be way more fun, balanced and polished than Wii. Controls feel tighter, online feels better, no bikes, no equivalent to Funky Kong / Flame Runner, no Thunder Cloud. And I like the unusual roster, along with the slight customization elements for karts.

[Matt_B]

Lol I was just laughing at the 'random' comments, we all know they aren't random! If you lagging behind you get speedups and if you leading you get bananas...there is no randomness at all!

Indeed. And I have to say, despite the comments that the pickups turn the game into 'a lottery', when I play MK with friends the best players still win nine times out of ten. All the pickups tend to do is give the less skilled players a fighting chance of at least scoring some decent points so they don't end up getting bored of finishing last every time.

Yep, they're just in there as a bit of a leveller to stop every race from becoming a total procession.

I'd say its pretty much 90% skill 10% luck in the single player too, at least I just managed to win 8 150cc races out of 8 this evening. Dare I suggest that those who find it "broken" probably just aren't that good and need to put a little more practice in?

[DreamcastRIP]

... Dare I suggest that those who find it "broken" probably just aren't that good and need to put a little more practice in?

Dare, dare! http://www.metacafe.com/watch/an-cidmb2 ... ic_figure/

Nah, Mario Kart Wii single player is broken.

[steve82]

Mario Kart is like the X factor IT NEEDS A BREAK

[slacey1070]

Lol I was just laughing at the 'random' comments, we all know they aren't random! If you lagging behind you get speedups and if you leading you get bananas...there is no randomness at all!

Indeed. And I have to say, despite the comments that the pickups turn the game into 'a lottery', when I play MK with friends the best players still win nine times out of ten. All the pickups tend to do is give the less skilled players a fighting chance of at least scoring some decent points so they don't end up getting bored of finishing last every time.

Yep, they're just in there as a bit of a leveller to stop every race from becoming a total procession.

I'd say its pretty much 90% skill 10% luck in the single player too, at least I just managed to win 8 150cc races out of 8 this evening. Dare I suggest that those who find it "broken" probably just aren't that good and need to put a little more practice in?

Yeah - and put in more practice and still lose 10% of races because of no fault of your own!

Don't get me wrong, its a GOOD game... just could have been made better by a few tweaks.

And (in multi player) I totally "get" the levelling off of processions.....

I just (personally) hate any game that comes across as "unfair" - I want to lose because I'm not very good, not because of "other" events.

[Matt_B]

Yeah - and put in more practice and still lose 10% of races because of no fault of your own!

Don't get me wrong, its a GOOD game... just could have been made better by a few tweaks.

And (in multi player) I totally "get" the levelling off of processions.....

I just (personally) hate any game that comes across as "unfair" - I want to lose because I'm not very good, not because of "other" events.

That's not what I meant. I'm already at the level where I don't win less than 10% of races - that's at 150cc/mirror - it'd be hardly ever at 50/100cc. Rather, it's just that you shouldn't begrudge the luck element before you've totally maxed out on the skill part. Looking at the time trial rankings I could probably knock 10-20 seconds off my race times on most tracks, and that's enough to take the hit from a couple more blue shells. If you can get that good, it ought to be nigh impossible not to win.

There's an element of luck in any racing game that has other cars on the tracks and any sort of random hazards. It's probably a lot less than in Mario Kart, but surely that's only to be expected for a game that's designed to be accessible and allow for a degree of competition between players of vastly differing ability.

I dare (again) say that they could please some people by taking out the blue shells, but that could result in a game that's simply too easy if they don't balance it with something else. Perhaps they could make the AI karts 10-20 seconds faster, in which case you'd have to go through a long period of getting your arse handed to you regularly before winning anything at 150cc, so be careful what you wish for.

[slacey1070]

Yeah - and put in more practice and still lose 10% of races because of no fault of your own!

Don't get me wrong, its a GOOD game... just could have been made better by a few tweaks.

And (in multi player) I totally "get" the levelling off of processions.....

I just (personally) hate any game that comes across as "unfair" - I want to lose because I'm not very good, not because of "other" events.

That's not what I meant. I'm already at the level where I don't win less than 10% of races - that's at 150cc/mirror - it'd be hardly ever at 50/100cc. Rather, it's just that you shouldn't begrudge the luck element before you've totally maxed out on the skill part. Looking at the time trial rankings I could probably knock 10-20 seconds off my race times on most tracks, and that's enough to take the hit from a couple more blue shells. If you can get that good, it ought to be nigh impossible not to win.

There's an element of luck in any racing game that has other cars on the tracks and any sort of random hazards. It's probably a lot less than in Mario Kart, but surely that's only to be expected for a game that's designed to be accessible and allow for a degree of competition between players of vastly differing ability.

I dare (again) say that they could please some people by taking out the blue shells, but that could result in a game that's simply too easy if they don't balance it with something else. Perhaps they could make the AI karts 10-20 seconds faster, in which case you'd have to go through a long period of getting your arse handed to you regularly before winning anything at 150cc, so be careful what you wish for.

Ok - thanks for clarifying that.... Yes, am sure some love the blue shells (and, yes, they were when I started playing)

Horses for courses, you like them, I'm not a fan - and thats fine . . . .You probably hate BF3, I like it!

I did like the suggestion of being able to pick your power ups on a config screen, that would be good... making all power ups red shells or whatever... or red and green shells...

Maybe in the next one?

[Matt_B]

Horses for courses, you like them, I'm not a fan - and thats fine . . . .You probably hate BF3, I like it!

I'm not a fan, but you can either take the game as broken because the sniper rifles are ridiculously underpowered, or work that little bit harder to get one-shot-kills with headshots. It's all down to you really.

I did like the suggestion of being able to pick your power ups on a config screen, that would be good... making all power ups red shells or whatever... or red and green shells...

Maybe in the next one?

Well, they finally caved in and started doing it for multi-player, so perhaps. Like I said, the issue with doing it for single player would be that it'd just make things ridiculously easy unless there's some other means of balancing it. Suggestions on a postcard to Hideki Konno, I suppose.