(Opens in a new window) Read Our King of Fighters XIV (for PlayStation 4) Review It's both infuriating and entertaining, and ensures that you can never feel too comfortable even if you're far ahead of everyone else in the race. The traditional Mario Kart item-based assist system is ever-present, with racers in last place regularly getting the most powerful items and pack leaders generally only picking up banana peels and green shells. And you can simply blast through crowds with the Bullet Bill or Power Star bonuses, and obscure other racers' views with Blooper's screen-smearing ink attack. The dreaded blue shell is still the bane of racers in first place, but the shockwave-blasting red horn provides at least some form of countermeasure. Helpful items and weapons can wildly swing the course of a race, with everything from banana peels to bombs available semi-randomly from boxes scattered on each track. (Opens in a new window)Īs always, simply driving around is only part of the game. Since 1982, PCMag has tested and rated thousands of products to help you make better buying decisions. It's fun, goofy racing without a hint of realism.

The mechanics of driving, drifting, and using items to confound your opponents is unchanged from Mario Kart 8, which itself represented only an incremental evolution from 1996's Mario Kart 64. You choose from a few dozen Mario characters and a variety of go-karts and bikes (with different options for tires and gliders/parachutes), and race on colorful, varied tracks taken from different Nintendo games. The Mario Kart BasicsĪt heart, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the same game as Mario Kart 8. It's the most robust Mario Kart game so far, and with the optional portability of the Switch it easily earns our Editors' Choice. In the process, Nintendo threw in both previously released DLC packs and made some few welcome changes to its multiplayer options, justifying the game's $59.99 retail price. Instead of making a new Mario Kart for the Nintendo Switch ($299.99 at Target) (Opens in a new window), Nintendo brought Mario Kart 8 to its new game system. Mario Kart 8 stood out as the best-looking Mario Kart game yet when it came out on the Nintendo Wii U three years ago.

Some stuttering with four-player split-screen in testing.

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