Mario Kart 8 (Wii-U)

[Jimbo]

That was a lot of fun! So many of those races came down to the wire. The one on Royal Raceway I was lucky enough to get three Mushrooms... three times in a row. Revenge was taken though, as I lost a couple spots at Electrodome because of a blue shell that targeted me while in second place.

 

 

Playing online made me realize how useless the item randomizer can be, if i'm at the back of the pack I don't want a fucking green shell or banana peel, come on game... And is it me or are the power ups literally few and far between? You literally have to hold onto an item because it's a while before you get another!

 

Agreed one hundred percent. In 6th place? Here's a banana. In 2nd place? Have a star.

 

I also hate the fact that you can't pick up another item while holding one out. You're forced to drop your item to have a chance at getting something else.

 

[Kuzu]

I tried that and they went off even though I didn't let go of the attack button. It might be because I'm playing on a Wii mote, I gotta check again, but I swear that kept happening after like 30 seconds.

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[Lady Soniko]

you just hold the item button down to shield your ass, it's literally useless though because A.I always magically have another item to wreck you with.

[Danj86]

 

Agreed one hundred percent. In 6th place? Here's a banana. In 2nd place? Have a star.

 

I also hate the fact that you can't pick up another item while holding one out. You're forced to drop your item to have a chance at getting something else.

Oh, I think that happened to me. I was given that special multiple item thing with them spinning around you, and I was only 3rd or 4th? Out of 6 of us.

 

Still didn't win though. lol

[Daisy-Fan]

anyone for some tournament?

[Conando]

you just hold the item button down to shield your ass, it's literally useless though because A.I always magically have another item to wreck you with.

 

I don't know, the AI seems pretty inoffensive to me this time. They don't even get many blue shells, and they CAN'T get triple red shells.

[SilentDoom]

I don't know, the AI seems pretty inoffensive to me this time. They don't even get many blue shells, and they CAN'T get triple red shells.

 

I concur with this, although they are INSANELY good at hitting Green Shells.  Seriously they must have some kind of eagle eye for them.  I've been hit by more Green Shells than Red and Blue combined.  

[KrazyBean]

I concur with this, although they are INSANELY good at hitting Green Shells.  Seriously they must have some kind of eagle eye for them.  I've been hit by more Green Shells than Red and Blue combined.  

 

Yep. My video pretty much confirms that they're snipers with Green Shells.

[Blue Blood]

I'm finding myself doing really well, and then getting fucked over by a barrage of items right at the last minute all too often. I suppose this is a problem that Mario Kart just won't be able to overcome...

[Jimbo]

I'm finding myself doing really well, and then getting fucked over by a barrage of items right at the last minute all too often. I suppose this is a problem that Mario Kart just won't be able to overcome...

 

Is this against the AI or against users? The AI seem to always get an item advantage on the higher levels, especially in 150cc and Mirror.

[jords]

Just tried 3 players split screen and you can notice the frame drop but it doesn't effect us that much. We still had our fun!

[YoshiUnity]

Well, I finally had time to play this game... and so far, I'm freaking loving everything about it. (Haven't play the battle mode yet... And honestly, I'm not looking forward to that.)

 

Everyone has pretty much said this over and over again, but I'll parrot it as well. It looks great, plays great and has a lot of charm! Right now, I'm moving through the 50cc and have now enter 100cc. Wish, I could unlock everything in 150cc or whatever one I want, but oh well. I'm still having a good time!

If I ever have time to with you guys, I'll be happy to do it! Right now, I must unlock all the things!

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

people love their Mario kart!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUqMgHgBrbE&feature=player_embedded

[Mystwalker]

Playing online made me realize how useless the item randomizer can be, if i'm at the back of the pack I don't want a fucking green shell or banana peel, come on game... And is it me or are the power ups literally few and far between? You literally have to hold onto an item because it's a while before you get another!

 

Trust me, you're not the only one annoyed with that. Minute after minute people from the MK community can't help but shout things like "omg Star in 2nd", "Shock in 3rd are you kidding me?", "single banana in 11th", "5 coin items in a row in 1st...".

 

At first I was really lenient and thinking it's a different Mario Kart and it's a matter of learning and getting used to it, but now, not sure if it's because it's nearly 5AM and feeling tired, but I do feel the item distribution is kinda out of hand and, in some races, outright stupid.

 

To me the biggest offender is the Coin item. It's a decent item for mid-pack players to have access to a burst of coins, but instead it gets placed into the top 3-4 places depending on distance. 1st place in particular gets Coins like 70% of the time... even when you're fully stacked up with coins. People are feeling incredibly discouraged to use items because of that probability and the one-item only rule, since Red Shells aren't rare to get (even saw some Triple Reds... in 2nd place).

 

On top of that, Mushrooms and Stars are notably weaker compared to previous games. Staying behind is pretty much a pure gamble where a comeback on even skill grounds is quite rare, due to how random and how ineffective the item distribution is (said Green Shell and Banana in last places vs random Triple Mushrooms in 3rd, for example). 

 

 

It's a polished game for sure, and I'm having lots of fun of it, but I really have to wonder why the developers went ahead with this "formula" of sorts... It's Mario Kart 64 all over again.

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

At least we can always look on the upside, they are capable of patching it this time

[Blue Blood]

Could someone give me the SSMB group codes, please? Maybe they should be added to the OP.

[azoo]

Yeah, they should. I've been wanting to find it out for a while now.

[Jimbo]

The daily one won't work anymore, but the weekly one starts tomorrow afternoon.

[Mystwalker]

At least we can always look on the upside, they are capable of patching it this time

 

True that. Though that reminds me, I wish Nintendo is aware about online rooms being closed whenever people AFK at the voting screen. For most of my first online session I thought joining friends was really bugged and kept disconnecting me, but it seems that whenever people don't pick a track everyone gets DC'd... Which is really cumbersome and gets annoying after a short while.

 

Since Miis seem to come and go while the voting lobby is up I guess it's a bug of some sort that could be patched out. Hopefully they do. A few have said this behaviour on the server happened even before release.

[Thigolf]

.Yeah, the items annoy me, and considering I only played this game for like 6 hours and I'm already annoyed at the item Balance, this development worries me.

 

Like, yesterday in the online mode, I got hit by multiple green Shells and found myself in 12th place, I got a red shell as an item. A red shell on last place! In another race, when I was 9th place, I got coins.

I appreciate they are trying to tone down the items, but when you are toning them so much that it simply becomes frustrating when you're falling just a little behind since the game doesn't give you enough chances to at least attempt to get back to the front.

 

The worst example was the time I played against my friend 1 on 1. He was a heavyweight character, I was a lightweight - as soon as I made a mistake and he got past me, due to his much higher top Speed, I couldn' t get Close to him again, since the game just kept giving me green Shells and bananas (when we was already out of sight) or coins. It just seemed incredibly unbalanced to me.

 

Maybe my impressions change when I play some more, but so far, I'm really not to happy about the toning down of the items - ironically, one of the things I was looking forward to the most.

[Jolt_TH]

Is it just me that think MK8 could be a great use of an iOS/android app for smartphones?

Like make an app where you can search your tournaments and you can see if there is actually anyone online? Plus it could tell you if a tournament is starting soon or if a friend has come online, otherwise you'd need to be on your Wii U.

I know I'd download that, otherwise O can't see how I'd play with friends or people like you guys other than when the tourneys are scheduled.

Heck they could expand it to a full online notification service, with MK8, Smash and anything else with online multiplayer.

[Your Vest Friend]

Is this against the AI or against users? The AI seem to always get an item advantage on the higher levels, especially in 150cc and Mirror.

 

This was an issue in the demo as well. I also found out that the Fire Flower annoyed me more than the blue shell ever did. 

[SuperLink]

I don't really get the hatred for item balance, are we playing the same game? Did you guys play Wii or 7? o_o Because in those games there were blue shells and other super powerful items every other second.. Making it impossible to stay in 1st or 2nd place for too long no matter your skill level. Now it may be a bit harder to keep up if you're in a lower place, but I think it's more fair. Also the knockback for most items is severely reduced compared to MKWii and 7, the Blue Shells stop you for less time than they used to, infact pretty much all items do besides green shells and red shells.

 

It's far from perfect I agree, but I don't know if Mario Kart's items can be perfect and I can't think of many times recently the items have been better than this.

 

I would have the bananas and red shells do less damage, and I would have players in 12th-10th able to get bullet bills or lightning bolts a bit more often. Besides that, MKWii and MK7 were a lot more vicious for items.

[Lady Soniko]

I wish we had recovery for items so we don't lose all our speed, MK64 had a feature when you spun out from banana peels and losing control if you press and de-press the accelerator, you could quickly pick your speed back up again, you know I just wish items knocked you forward constantly whilst you lost control, not bring you to a tumble standstill for 5 seconds of flailing.

 

Blue shells aren't really the problem here, it's how spaced out the item placements are and how useless the randomizer is this time around, I have no idea what you're talking about SuperLink because N64's items were at least decent, its the coin item that pisses me off and getting items that you should be getting in 1st-3rd place when you're in literally 10th-11th place.

[KrazyBean]

Yes! The Coin item is SO ANNOYING. Every single time a Red Shell is after me I get the Coin item. If it wasn't there it could be a Banana or a Green Shell or SOMETHING I can actually use to defend myself...