Mario Kart 8 isn't out for another couple of weeks, but the reviews for it started showing up this morning and man are they impressive. There's a lot of 9/10s, a couple of 10/10s and a good solid number of 8s, which seems a bit poetic. Whether it can turn around the ill-fated-fortunes of the Wii U remains to be seen, but it should at least give it a nice boost off the line to keep it relevant over the next few months.
Here's a taste of (and links to) a few of a few reviews of the game:
- Joystiq: 9/10
- DigitalSpy: 8/10
- Eurogamer: 10/10
- Computer and Video Games: 9/10
- Gamespot: 8/10
- Polygon: 9/10
- Games Radar: 4/5
But you can't be bothered to read all those links right? You want it nice and neat and summarised, right?
So what did the reviewers like?
The visuals are gorgeous, the frame rate is a nice, solid 60 FPS (until you dip into 4 player split screen) and the tracks are huge and varied. You fly upside down, glide, then drift over a ramp with a booster - they're frantic as ever, with plenty of clever additions to keep it interesting. There's also a lot of characters to choose from, as well as Kart customisation for the more in-depth kart racers.
The only real complains about the game were that some of the characters aren't really fan favourites, the battle mode could have used a few dedicated maps and the fact that the frame rate doesn't hold steady when you get four people on the same screen.
Other than that, everyone loved it. It's got a couple of hiccups, but ultimately Nintendo hit gold with one of its landmark franchises. You and I both expected it too, but it'll be interesting to see how this helps the Wii U over the next few months.