Mario Kart 7 ROM Description

The Big Daddy of kart racing games returns with Mario Kart 7 on the Nintendo 3DS. And while we can’t see what the 3D visuals look like here you can get a good idea of what the game looks like in 2D. It looks like Mario Kart, which is the quality that you would expect from the Mario Kart series. Number 7, boy, they’ve made a lot of them by now.

Characters

When you fire the game up, these are your playable characters. I’m not sure if there’s any unlockable ones yet. I’m still busy crushing all of the cups, but I’m pleased to say that this is Mario Kart as we know and love it. They haven’t changed much for Mario Kart 7 but have made a few noticeable modifications.

Hang gliding – Mario Karts, that’s improbable yet highly likable! I love the addition of the hang gliding off of some jumps that will pull out the hang glider, and you control it like you’re playing Pilotwings or something during races. You can get a nice advantage by actually hang-gliding around corners. Of course, you can also run into things too.

Anyone who’s enjoyed a Mario Kart game in the past will be immediately familiar with how to play this one. The controls work exactly as they should. There’s the Grand Prix mode and the time trials, and I’ll cover Balloon Battle and Coin Runners in part two as well as multiplayer.

There are a bunch of new courses as well as some familiar old courses from previous Mario Kart installments. New weapon power-ups include tail attacks, and you can shoot fireballs at your opponents. You’ll note there are coins on the track, and the more coins that you collect the quicker you can unlock all of the new features in the game, like new karts and wheel customization options.

3D Effects

As this is on the Nintendo 3DS, we would expect 3D, and the game has it, of course. It works quite well, assuming you can keep your 3DS still. The problem I always have with driving games is that I tilt and move the 3DS when playing them which loses the 3D effect. But other than that, it works exactly as it should and runs extremely smoothly. It looks great in 2D as well.

Mario Kart 7 is, as you would expect, bright and colorful. There are a couple of longer tracks this time around, like this one on Wuhu Island. Basically, it’s more Mario Karts, but more Mario Karts is always a good thing when you’re a fan of the Mario Kart series. And while I’m not always a huge fan of the 3D effect on the 3DS, I do like it for this game, but you’ve really got to concentrate on holding your 3DS still.

Gameplay

As you’ve probably noticed you can drift around corners and get an additional boost of speed. You can also hop off of jumps which gives you a little boost. As of this review, I’ve played a lot of Mario Kart, it’s actually one of my favorite game series. So, I went through the 50cc and 100cc races without a problem. The 150cc starts to put up a bit of a challenge but I’m sure many of you will be buying this game in anticipation of online multiplayer which I’ll cover in part 2.

The gameplay is solid Mario Kart, it’s really not that much different from Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart DS. Sure it’s got its new features, but it’s pretty much more of the same with new tracks, and it’s got 3D visuals. I would have to say that Nintendo released the dynamic duo of 3DS games back-to-back with this game and Super Mario 3D Land. They’re both excellent. Why have they been hiding these games for the past few years? Make more of them!

The new-level designs are pretty good, and they’re definitely on par with the other games. You’ll find some that you like and some that you don’t but they’ve also done a nice job of bringing tracks from the older games into the mix. I would love to see some new downloadable content offering up all of the other tracks in 3D with new places to jump. How about Grindelwald from Gran Turismo 2? Oh, it’s the realism that makes Mario Kart great. That’s fun, and they’ve made the game really fun and extremely realistic.