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Hmmm, my hardcoreness.

Well awesome gaming bible EDGE magazine once said that you're a hardcore gamer if you own a Neo Geo console. Well I have a Neo Geo Pocket colour. Does that count?

Guess I should list a gaming system history/list/thing to fill 5 minutes of my day.

in autobiographical order (although many of these were played earlier this is the order I got my own)

ZX Spectrum 48k
Amiga 500
Game Boy
Game Gear
Amiga 1200
Mega Drive
Playstation
Game Boy Colour
Dreamcast
Snes
Nes
Master System
Neo Geo Pocket Colour
Sega Saturn
Game Boy Advance
Playstation 2
Xbox
Game Boy Advance sp
Nintendo DS
Xbox 360
Wii
PSP
Playstation 3

Right, I think that's everything. That was boring.

Gamer Profile

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3DS friend code:
Steam:
Battle:
PSN:
Mii:
Gamertag:

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Where I belive Mario Kart Wii has gone wrong.
lvl54spacemonkey \| 8:30 PM on 04.13.2008	20 comments

Number 1:

The new circuits are more rollercoaster than race track. The developers seem to have been scared of flat surfaces and felt the best thing to do is spen most of the tracks layout rolling all over the place and hitting "wicked air" off halfpipes. If nintendo wanted to make course like this why not just make a new 1080 Snowboarding game?

Numbah 2:

Not enough SNES tracks. Only 2 circuits and 1 battle level from the original Mario Kart makes me an unhappy monkey. There's quite a few Mario Kart games now so I'm sure picking out just 16 for the retro GPs is tough but why not just have 5 races per GP instead of four?.... Oh wait, it's a Nintendo game. No formula can be messed with.

Numba 3:

The weapon scaling system sucks. it sucked in Mario Kart Double Dash, It sucked in Mario Kart DS and it's worse than ever in Mario Kart Wii. I know they want the races to be close but there's better ways of doing this than giving the rubbish players a ton of first place shells and bullet bills. Hows about increasing the distance behind an opponent you can draft boost them from. Or if weapon scaling should be used make it so it only effects the boost mushrooms.

Numbeh D:

Friends codes suck. It makes no sense that you get a friend code for Mario Kart but it can check your Wii Console friends list. Why not just use the consoles friends list to begin with so you don't have to go adding everyone from you wii list to your Mario kart one.

Numero 5:

Online is good but poorly thought out. I've had about 20 races online and when searching for players I have no idea if it has found any until it brings up all the question mark bubbles. Why don't they appear as you join the race? Players shouldn't be able to vote for the same track 2 times in a row. I was in a group earlier that kept choosing Luigi Circuit and Wario Stadium. Also whats the use of seeing if my friends are playing online? They will likely be playing through the GPs for the extra characters. Surely with Wiiconnect 24 they could make it so you can see if your friends are playing single player too.

Other than all that this is a good Mario Kart. Just not the best. Better than Double Dash though.

/rant.

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19 comments | showing # 1 to 19

Jaren Face

"Hmmm. Final lap, 8th place, what ever do I do."
"Don't worry, it's Mario Kart. you're guaranteed at least third."
"Right, it's Mario Kart".

Yeah, the weapon system is really skewed from what I've seen. The above scenario more or less played true with my experience with it this past Friday. A few races played out in a way where you were better off entering the final lap last then first. Not to mention the Blue-Shell is more annoying than ever now =\

liquidninja

Do you live in europe or did you just import it?

About the tracks, I think the original Super Mario Kart had 5 tracks per cup. I really believe they should've done more then 32 tracks, anyways (but I still haven't played it yet so I don't know).

lvl54spacemonkey

Yep, I'm in the UK so been playing it for a few days now.

Earlier today I won a online race at the last second from 10th place. On Luigi Circuit (of course) and I got a bullet Bill followed by a Gold Mushroom. Literally stole lead by just a 100th of a second. The guy who was in the lead must have been a bit miffed by this.

Also lost a Rainbow Road race because on the last corner I got hit by a blue shell, nudged off the track, hit by a red shell, nudged off the other side of the track. Was in 1st ended in 8th.

I like a bit of chaos in the game but stuff like that makes me lose interest in playing.

Arminas

I agree. Friend codes suck. I can forgive almost everything else Nintendo has done just because they make fun games, but the friend code thing comes back every time.

DigDug

If it's anything like past Mario Karts, The rolling, curvy tracks are probably there to hide some terrible pop-up.

lvl54spacemonkey

Totally. I found it real bizarre when I got home with my copy that a friend of mine was able to send me a friends request to my Wii Message board without me having a friends code yet. In order to retrieve the friends request it told me to use the Mario Kart Channel. You install that from the disc. So i go back to the message to accept the friends request, it boots up the mario kart channel and it then tells me I can't accept a friends request until i have been online with the game to receive my friends code.

So i do that. Get my code, go back to the message, accept, it boots the channel and friend request complete.

The message I received had his friends code, I had to get mine but at no point did either of us need to enter this code as the message and friends request was sent via our wii console codes. So what exactly is the point of the in game friends codes?

lvl54spacemonkey

Actually there's no pop up at all. You can see for miles. Even the LODding (level of detail loading) is smoother than on previous games.

liquidninja

Wait, so are you saying that you know longer have to type in friend codes to add a friend you can just send a friend request through MK Channel?

If so that's awesome.

lvl54spacemonkey

Yes it is good in that respect. But then it just highlights how pointless it is that each game has their own code when it's clear it can use the wii consoles codes just as well.

liquidninja

You need Wii codes to send a friend request? Well then it's not as cool as I thought, but at least all those people thinking Wii codes would replace friend codes weren't left in the dust this time.

lvl54spacemonkey

You can also send a friends request by entering the other persons Mario Kart friends code in the game or mario kart channel. it just seems pointless to even have mario kart codes when it's obvious that they can use the wii codes.

I should have tried the steering wheel before writing this blog. Haven't used it yet because i've played a few driving games on wii using one of them plastic donuts and none of them were fun at all.

Kyousuke Nanbu

It really sucks how the last place guys get the killer items.

Nothing more fun that barely scrapping 1st in 150cc only to get blown away with the blue shell meer inches from the finishing line and end up in like 7th place.

Fuck rubber band A.I.

Conan-san

Course if the item system was un skewered, I garantee you we'd be like "Man, fuck the AI, it gets tripple red shells and lightning bolts to keep it's first place regardless of what I do"

And I like my races to be close, thank you very much.

NyghtcrawleR

I still think the original SNES Mario Kart was the best.

Therefore any new Mario Kart needs lots of old Mario Kart.

JustLikeBuck

I've been put off my Mario Kart Wii for a bit now. I know my Gf wants to play it, but I'm not sure if it's worth geting the N44 or SNES version.

F-Zero on N64 allowed a huge amount of AI racers, which kept the race interesting; there was always someone to beat. But 10th to 1st in the final few seconds just seems daft :|

Anus Mcphanus

The courses are more roller coaster in order to take advantage of the new trick system and more often than not you don't have to use the ramps/half pipes to win. The design also makes using weapons more strategical, keeps the races more frantic and imo requires more skill to be able to keep up.

The weapon scaling system is always messed up in Mario Kart games. I agree that it is more apparent in this version but I prefer my races close and intense. Even if you get dicked over by everyone and everything you never really end up that far behind the pack and can usually recover. Except on the final stretch of the final lap but then again if they can do it to you, you can do it to them as well. It's true that Nintendo have gone a bit OTT this time though.

Friend codes are indeed bullshit. What pisses me off the most though is that even though you can see you're friends online, if you set up a room to play in there's no way to contact them to join you.

The question mark bubbles do appear when you join a race online though. If you don't get those then you're not connecting to any races/battles. I've only had connection issues when I'm trying to join a friend in a match but boy does it take an age and a half.

Oh and the wheel sucks. There's a slight delay when you turn so you can't do a sharp turn straight into a power slide as you'll end up sliding in the wrong direction. Also the wheel just isn't as responsive as the other control methods so twisty corners and courses are a lot more challenging but that just takes practice.

I think we might be playing this again online on Friday for the Euro FNF and you should definitely join us! :-D

WDot

I know this is a sucky strategy, but if you hate being raped in the last few seconds of the race, drop down to second place and let the first place guy take all the blue shell hits. You get slightly better items and some degree of safety. Still won't help beat the bullet bill users though.

lvl54spacemonkey

The issue with the weapon scaling isn't that it keeps the race close. It just adds chaos to the first placer. They could keep the races closer by only scaling boost items and making the drafting technique more inmportant to winning, which of course the first placer wouldn't be able to use.

I'm all for more drivers on the grid though. Loved F-zero with it's mass of cars to swerve around. Seeing as they seem to want Mario Kart to have 20 something characters they should fill the grid up accordingly.

Dan CiTi

The GBA Mario Kart is probably the best one. Also, F-Zero GX > any Mario Kart.

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Living the dream since March 16, 2006