Mario Kart has long been our game of choice, it’s the game that Curly always wants to play against Daddy and I (probably because he knows that he can beat us) and it’s the one that the younger Beans have learned to enjoy too but as our ‘leisurely’ gaming family goes we do tend to enjoy more of the track games anyway (unless you count the dancing games). We aren’t ‘serious’ gamers, we don’t worry about how long it takes to complete a game or too much of the technical stuff but we do love to play and we play for fun, to enjoy spending time together doing something a little competitive because a bit of healthy competition is always good.
Mario Karts often used to come out for the evening whenever we had guests over and would start well and generally end badly depending on how much we had to drink – you should never drink and drive people, not even on a game or you crash lots!
Since Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U landed in our house I can honestly say I don’t think it has ever left the machine as it gets played so often. Even Beanie Boy who is very new to gaming is getting the hang of it now and I put that down to him being able to play on the Wii U remote which is perfect for him. Plus it means that the others can still watch TV if they don’t feel like playing whilst he plays along sitting on the sofa next to him.
So getting down to Mario Kart 8 – things have changed, but in a good way. Now the tracks go up and down and even upside down, you can drive through water, fly through the clouds or whizz around the walls. Your kart switches from a Kart into a hover craft (possibly the only bit I don’t like as I can’t seem to handle it so well). There are a few of the old tracks still in there (I love Moo Moo Meadow) and there are some brilliant new tracks too. We haven’t found one track as yet that we don’t like; my personal favourites are Sweet Sweet Canyon (I wonder why?) and Thomp Ruins. Curly loves Mount Wario and Bowser’s Castle whereas the younger Beans love Dolphin Shoals.
Kart-wise there are lots of different options available and this is where I am probably a bit rubbish as I haven’t really played around with my Kart too much, when little ones are playing too I don’t get much time to think about my Kart as they moan that I’m taking too long so I stick to what I know but when I get that ‘golden spare hour’ somewhere I would love to sit and have a play at Mario Kart 8 all by myself and see what the differences make.
The great thing about Mario Kart 8 is that it really is suitable to everyone from Novice to Expert, you can take from the game exactly what you want. It can be light-hearted fun or it can be all-out race wars.
We will always be a Mario Kart family!!
Do you play on the Wii U? What’s your favourite game?
We love Mario Kart too, it’s such a great family game. Is it available on the normal Wii too as we don’t have a Wii U?
I believe it’s only available on the Wii U at the moment 🙁