Game review: ‘Mario Kart 8 Deluxe,’ family-friendly racer updated with lots of fun bonus content
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo)
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo)
Parents need to know that “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe” is a racing game. It stars iconic game characters from all over the Nintendo universe, who drive go-karts around outlandish and imaginative tracks. (Common Sense Media/TNS)
Parents need to know that “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe” is a racing game. It stars iconic game characters from all over the Nintendo universe, who drive go-karts around outlandish and imaginative tracks. There’s some violence with fireballs, shells, and other animated weapons, but it’s cartoonish in nature and there’s nothing graphic shown. This is a port and extended version of the 2014 Wii U game, providing lots and lots of supplemental content, bonus features, and visual enhancements. There are also some much-welcome refinements made to the online play.
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
As a racing game, “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe” has no real narrative. You play as one of 42 — yes, 42 — characters and can compete in races on 48 courses, five battle modes, and extensive online modes. In the races, obviously, your goal is to reach the finish line through speed or strategic use of weapons, like dropping a banana on the track to slip up opponents trailing behind or hitting a series of jumps for a temporary speed burst. In the battle modes, you want to be the last racer standing on tracks designed for games of cat and mouse hunting.
IS IT ANY GOOD?
This definitive version of the popular racing franchise brings hours of fast-paced fun in the palm of your hands. “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe” is an interesting cross-pollination of previous entries and also course corrections on a few lacking (or completely missing) modes of the 2014 Wii U version. If you’re unfamiliar with the lineage, all you need to know is that this entry is wacky, frenetic, and a lot of fun. In the racing modes, each track is given a healthy amount of variety, not only in their frequent branching paths offering alternate routes, but also in the strategy in customizing your vehicle. Most stages have areas where your car (or motorcycle) will flip into a hovercraft, go underwater, or go careening through the sky with a paraglider. There are also lots of variants in the battle modes (coin runners, shine thief, balloon battle, renegade roundup) — which were noticeably anemic in the original Wii U version. Here, most of them are great. The only minor knocks against this game are the inability to customize your control, how dull single-player will be for series veterans, and the fact that while there are tons of characters, many of them are uninspired (baby versions of characters, characters wearing different costumes). Still, “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe” is tons of fun to play for hours and hours and hours.
RATING AND CONTENT
Recommended for ages 7 and older
Quality: 4 out of 5
Positive messages: 3 out of 5
Positive role models: 1 out of 5
Ease of play: 3 out of 5
Violence and scariness: 1 out of 5
Consumerism: 2 out of 5 (Are products/advertisements embedded? Is the title part of a broader marketing initiative/empire? Is the intent to sell things to kids?)
GAME DETAILS
Platforms: Nintendo Switch
Price: $59.99
Developer: Nintendo
Release date: April 28, 2017
Genre: Racing
ESRB rating: E for Comic mischief
