POSTED 2/12/11


MARIO KART 7

Nintendo
3DS

“We’re the originator, not the imitator”. If we had a dollar from every rapper that made this claim we’d have both serious bling-burn and enough bucks to go apeshitcrazybonkers at Cold Rock, lapping up nummy-nummy smushed ice cream along with the irony.

Mario Kart actually IS the originator. Well, not in a rapping sense, but definitely in a character-based videogame go-karting sense. So, unlike Sonic, Pac-Man, Digimon, The Smurfs, Final Fantasy’s Chocobos, Banjo Kazooie, M&Ms, Spongebob, Woody Woodpecker and even fucking Crazy Frog (if you don’t know, don’t ask), Nintendo can do whatever they want with it, and pump ’em out until the Daisy Hills cows go “moo!”. Oh, hang on, they’re sheepy things. Erm, “Baa!”.

But messing with successful formulas isn’t always S-M-R-T – uh, we mean S-M-A-R-T. Just ask Coca-Cola. New to MK7, you not only fang around all wheely-like, you sometimes go hang-glidery to finagle your way from big air to terra firma. You’ll also glub-glub along underwater on occasions. Then there’s the kart kustomi- sorry, customisation. Pick from various frames, wheels and other bits, with more unlocking as you progress. Plus there’s 3D, duh! In a koopa shell, all four additions are completely, totally and utterly unnecessary, and don’t add to the experience in any purposeful way.

Still, spare a thought for Nintendo; they’re damned either way. Don’t fiddle and the usual idiot gamer chorus will whine about it not having evolved, bleaty-bleaty-blah-blah. Mess with it and people like us moan, for Super Mario Kart on the SNES remains, to us at least, the most perfect videogame ever. It’s been downhill ever since because the Big N has subscribed to the evolutionary path. New isn’t always better.

Anyway, Mario Kart 7 isn’t sucky, for its classic MK roots – some more obvious than they’ve been for a while - are bulletproof. But a remastering of the originator would have been heaps more fun. Evolve that, Mr Darwin.

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