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Mario Kart 8: refinement extraordinaire

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Is Mario Kart 8 perfect?  No.  The series has stagnated in terms of its single-player mode, the battle arenas are no longer arenas, and the time trial ghosts are a bit glitchy. But those surrounding aspects do not  change the fact that the central game is utterly glorious, and remains a superbly fun experience.  The racing gameplay has been refined with new items (and the loss of some old), the track designs have been meticulously put together, and everything is balanced beyond compare.

A good player will win 75% of their races.  A great player will win 90%.  The chance for less talented gamers to win keeps them interested, and while it's fashionable to claim that there's no skill and too much randomness in the game, that is less true than ever with the addition of the horn item which can destroy blue shells.


I've been working my way through the 50cc tournaments, but have just learnt that completion of 100cc and 150cc unlocks the lower levels anyway.  Practising on 50cc has helped in any case, and my first 100cc cup was a breeze.


The other amazing aspect of the game is MKTV - not the short-lived Milton Keynes endeavour, but rather a replay mode which enables uploads to YouTube and replays on its own website.  The details that you can see when watching these replays are quite amazing.


WiiU – Welcome back

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WiiU - Thankfully turned up Friday, I tried to login with my gospvg NNID but it kept on coming up with error messages so I gave up to carry on with the system update. Once all updated we sat down to enjoy Mario Kart 8.

Nintendo do know how to make family consoles, the PS4/360 consoles are mainly used for single player experiences but nothing is better than a Nintendo machine for local multi-player fun. Experience shone through & I won the first Grand Prix against the kids. Alas that was not to last & once the boys & my eldest daughter got to grips it was a much tougher challenge.

Nintendoland (even with it's annoying presentation) especially Mario Chase & Luigi's Ghost Mansion are still great fun with the advantage of allowing a fifth player to join the fun. I'm surprised Mario Kart did not go the same route with one player on the gamepad & four split screen on the TV.

Saturday I had the frustrations with trying to get customer support to transfer my NNID to my new console. In the end I gave up & created a new NNID gospvguk (I've updated the ugvm page). I also had to create a new club Nintendo account because the old account was linked to the now defunct gospvg NNID. This had made me very wary about purchasing any content on the eshop because it is tied to an NNID which is tied to a WIIU.

The free game process however worked very smoothly, I registered Mario Kart 8 & after the survey it came up with a banner which I clicked on to choose my free game. I did think about going with Nintendoland or Wii Party U because it would save on the disc loading but in the end I opted for Zelda Wind Waker.

Luffers was connected so time to try out Mario Kart 8 on-line. I like that you could take two players on-line so Abbas joined me. Made it to the game lobby & connection failed. Luffers then created a room which I joined along with Choobs who was online. Thankfully this worked & we were able to enjoy quite a few races.

Game chat works but in an odd way only during the lobby & it did not recognise my headset. All the chat was coming out of the TV speakers?
I’ve tried various control methods over the weekend from GamePad, Wii Remote/Nunchuck but the Wii Remote/Classic Controller has become my preferred choice until the Pro Controller arrives. I still have not quite sussed the drifting style but after some races with Koopa I am now back with my usual character of Wario.

I’ve not played any of the Mario games (NSMBU/3D World) or Zombi U but I did start Zelda Wind Waker. This looks truly gorgeous & is a joy to play, I spent quite a bit of time with the game yesterday completing various quests & taking down my first boss fight. The girls are enjoying watching me play & keep asking “Have you saved your sister yet?”

It is a triumphant return for Nintendo that none of the kids wanted to turn on any of the other consoles but all wanted to play Mario Kart or Nintendo Land. On hindsight maybe I should not have gotten rid of the purchased WiiU last year (at least I would not have lost my NNID).

The Lego Movie Videogame (Wii U): COMPLETED!

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tumblr_n6eqkywexu1svmpf2o1_1280I do love a good Lego game. I’m actually quite keen on the bad ones too, although there aren’t really any. None I’ve played, anyway, and I don’t count any Lego game that isn’t the now-standard collect everything smash everything OCDfest style Lego game.

However, despite all of them (even the Harry Potter ones) being generally fantastic, most are full of bugs. Very few have failed to not lock up my console at least once, and most have scripting errors where triggered events don’t trigger. This game, however, is the very worst when it comes to bugs. So. Many. Bugs. It’s like that bit in Wreck-It Ralph where all the eggs hatch.

Bugs, not limited to the following:

  • Console lockups (Wii U needs unplugging)
  • Controls simply not working
  • Player 1 suddenly controlling player 2 (and player 2′s controller doing nothing)
  • Wii U gamepad suddenly not showing that player’s screen
  • Scripted sequences not happening
  • Sound disappearing completely from cut scenes
  • Level music “running out”, leaving just sound effects
  • Being able to collect 4 of 3 instruction sheets
  • Being unable to progress past the level end score roundup thing
  • Getting stuck in scenery
  • The 10th gold brick in the bonus level (on top of the desk) not appearing
  • Being unable to grapple on Batman/Wonder Woman grapple points
  • Indestructible Micro Managers (which you have to defeat to progress)
  • Getting trapped in Brickburg hub was Lord Business with his big legs on
  • On screen prompts telling me to press Z or C when using a Controller Pro. Got that a lot. And B, when they mean Y
  • The dancing minigame not accepting any input from either controller
  • Being stuck as Angry Unikitty forever, meaning I can’t progress as she’s too big to enter a door
  • Once the game deciding I wanted to play split screen on the TV half way through a level instead of a screen each like for the whole of the rest of the game

Dance_magic_danceBUGS. And that’s not my only complaint. This game is really short. I think the previous most shortestest Lego game I’ve 100%ed was Lego Pirates of the Caribbean (which also happens to be the previous most buggiestest too), which I think took about 9 hours to finish, and about 30 to 100%. Lego Movie took 8 hours to finish, and 12 hours to reach where I am now at about 82%. The rest is just gold instruction manual and hidden pants mop up – I’ve done all the red bricks and characters already!

Dell_tasticBut none of this really matters because the game is great. The characters and cutscenes (mostly ripped right from the film) are great. It’s all great. But not Everything is Awesome, sadly.

Perhaps the release date was tight as it needed to tie in with the film. Perhaps it’s a bit simplified because it’s aimed a little more at kids than previous titles. Maybe it’s just the Wii U version hampered by all the bugs (although I suspect not). Whatever it is holding it back is a shame, but even the worst Lego game is still a great Lego game.

Mario Kart 8 (Wii U)

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Winner_I’m not going to say very much about this apart from that I’ve spent many hours on it already today and it’s fantastic. No, it’s more than fantastic. Especially online, where I managed to hold my own. Which was nice.

I’ll post again with more details in the future, but for now, here’s my very first race:

Edge (Wii U): COMPLETED!

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tumblr_n6761hae9e1svmpf2o1_1280None of the levels are especially hard, so it was only a matter of time before my play on this, sporadic as it was, brought me to the end.

Some levels were fun, and overall the game is good, but a few levels are ruined by making walls and floors move without giving you time to react. You have no option but to die, because you don’t know what is coming next. Sure, dying isn’t that terrible here – you’ve no limit on lives and you can still S rank a level even if you peg it multiple times – but those levels where you only progress a little bit further each attempt then die because something else unexpected happens, over and over, take something from the formula.

Still, it was less than two quid, kept me entertained for several hours (over many weeks), and the music and art style are both fantastic. Even if there aren’t enough tracks so they repeat just a little too frequently.

I’ve still got the bonus levels (bonus == optional) to finish off, so it’s not all over yet, but the main two game modes are done, so it’s completed in by book.