Continuing the surge of “must have” 3DS games over the holiday season, Mario returns to the track with 16 of his closets allies/nemesis/random characters in Mario Kart 7. Mario Kart 7 is unique for several different reasons; the biggest being the break from the typical naming convention of Mario Kart (system) or Mario Kart: (clever tagline). Mario Kart 7 is simply named, Mario Kart 7, because it’s the seventh entry in the series. Boasting several new tracks and 17 playable racers, does Mario Kart 7 put wind beneath your sails or leave you drowning in the depths?
Mario Kart 7 is pretty much exactly what you’d expect from a Mario Kart game with a few new tricks. For instance, you now have a glider sail that pops out of the top of your kart allowing you to soar through the air when hitting jumps. This allows the tracks to have a whole new field of depth on top of the 3D effect, which make for some very impressive scenery while racing around the track. This subtle, but excellent addition makes finding shortcuts so much easier, and doesn’t feel like you’re cheating the geometry (think Boo’s Haunt from the original Mario Kart on SNES).
Mario Kart 7 also has the ability to take the race underwater and your kart becomes a submarine, allowing you to continue racing beneath the waves. While this is also a pretty neat effect, the physics aren’t nearly as natural feeling as they are in the air. When jumping underwater, I’d assume I couldn’t jump as high, but I’d have less traction and I’d float longer from drop offs; only the last part seems to have been included. These sections are cool to look at, but ultimately add very little to the race.
The 3D sections of Mario Kart 7 enhance the graphics, giving the illusion of sharper graphics and a greater field of depth. What this means to you? The game benefits from the 3D, proving that the 3D is a more enjoyable experience especially on the newer tracks made specifically for Mario Kart 7. There are also additional sections added to the classic tracks, such as being able to go into the pool on the Daisy Cruiser instead of just bounced away from it, but they add very little to get excited about.
Control wise, Mario Kart 7 plays like a champ, including some familiar abilities to get your power slide/drifts on for optimal boosts out of turns. You can also gain an acceleration boost by drafting with another kart, which allows you to pull a slingshot move around the person in front of you but they took out skitching, so don’t go bashing face first into a car when you play the city tracks. The controls are simple enough that anyone can pick them up and play, and if you’ve ever played a Mario Kart game before, you’ll feel immediately familiar with the layout.
Mario Kart 7 also features a change-up in the available power-ups found on the track. Several of the items from Mario Kart Wii are missing, as is Boo and the booby-trapped item block. However, in their absence, you’ll find three new items: The Fire Flower, The Super Leaf, and The Lucky 7. The Fire Flower allows you to throw fireballs directly in front of you for a limited amount of time, which, in my opinion, is a nice alternative to the green turtle shell as the fire balls are more forgiving if your aim isn’t so hot. The Super Leaf gives your kart a Tanooki tail, inspired by its appearance in Super Mario 3D Land, and allows your kart to spin around and hit other racers who get near with a tail swipe. Finally, the Lucky 7 is probably the most unfair (and rare) power up in Mario Kart history. The lucky 7 gives you a ring of 7 items, consisting of: Red Shell, Green Shell, Banana, Mushroom, Star, Blooper (Squid that sprays ink), and the Bob-omb. This item also works like the triple shells power-up, where you can either fire them off or keep them surrounding your kart as a shield. Keep in mind you’ll lose all of the items if you’re hit by lightning or a blue shell though.
Aside from the items and tracks, there are 17 racers in all including 3 that have never been seen in the driver’s seat. In addition to that, Mario Kart 7 lets you customize your karts by choosing body types, wheels, and a glider/parachute. While these customization options are nice, they’re very weak in comparison to something like ModNation Racers. There’s also some pretty good Online play found in Mario Kart 7, but it’s often hit or miss trying to get connected to a race. I played a few races with another writer and found I could only connect every 3 or 4 times, but once connected I could race throughout an entire cup circuit.
On paper, Mario Kart 7 sounds like the best version of Mario Kart so far, and to some extents it is. Make no mistake about it, your kids are going to LOVE Mario Kart 7; but for the rest of us, it’s hard to ignore some of these glaring issues. Immediately you’ll notice how slow the gameplay is. While it’s Mario Kart and you sort of expect the same pace, it feels like standing still after playing a game like Blur or Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. On top of that, the game uses all sorts of cheap trickery to “keep things even”. 150 CC should be challenging, but it’s less about speed and skill than it is simply about luck. I’ve played the cups numerous times, and more often than not someone has hit me with the blue shell, only to be hit immediately afterward with a lightning strike, leaving me stunned less than 5 feet from the finish line and with a 6th place finish. Cheap tricks wouldn’t be so bad, but the AI is constantly rubber banded to keep up, so no matter how far ahead you pull, you’re never really more than one mistake away from last place.
Overall, despite some gripes, I can still highly recommend Mario Kart 7 – but I do it with a bit of reservation. The formula has been great all these years, but we’re on the 7th version. It’s time to step Mario Kart’s game up, Nintendo. It’s time to bring Mario Kart back to real competition, and these characters are more than capable of edge-of-your-seat, heart-pounding, intense racing action.
