E3 2011: Mario Kart Hands-On Preview
By: Jeff Rivera
Mario Kart is always a game that seems to help validate a new Nintendo system to its fans and give a familiar access point for people who are looking to pick up Nintendo's latest hardware offering. While it didn't quite make launch, getting Mario Kart out in the first year of the 3DS lifespan is an important move. At E3 2011, Mario Kart made a strong appearance, bringing new twists to Nintendo's classic franchise.
The demo allowed me to get a peek at some of the new features that will be coming to the Mario Kart franchise. Before the race I was able to do a bit of customization with my car, but not getting any solid info as to what effect the larger tires or different body styles would provide, I played it safe and picked something that was pretty close to a standard Mario Kart build. I'm guessing that different tires will provide differing levels of grip and control and the different builds are more tied to acceleration and top speeds. It'll take some deeper experimentation to see how big of an impact these things will have on the race, but I like the inclusion of the option to the game.
After tuning my car, I got started into a quick 3-race circuit. It felt as if the game was set to 50cc, as it wasn't very challenging, but the tracks did throw some nice twists and turns to keep me on my toes. The glider deploys automatically when you take a big jump, and you can control the distance of your flight by angling your glider differently. While up in the air, you'll see much more ahead on the track than you can on the ground, and you can decide if you want to try to cut off turns or if you just want to get back down to the ground and on the road once more.
When dropping into deep water, your car also converts automatically, this time into a submarine. It might change in other courses, but any time I changed into the submarine, it was part of the course design and could not be avoided via an alternate path. It will be neat to see if branching paths evolve, kind of like what we saw in Diddy Kong Racing. Right now it just mixes up the feel of the race and makes you master more than just power sliding or weapon aiming.
I didn't see any new weapons, but Nintendo always finds new things to get into the game. What I did find interesting is that Retro Studios is helping with level design, but if their involvement goes deeper we don't know at this point.
Mario Kart is just the working title for the game, but we should get a final name on it soon as it's due out some time in 2011. I had a lot of fun with it and will be excited to get online and racing once more when Mario Kart hits the 3DS.
