Topic: The Wii U has finally done it!

@WaLzgi Really, you find 64 worse than Super Circuit?

Anyway I think good DLC is what pushes Mario Kart 8 as the best one, no longer are you limited to the base 32 tracks (20/16/40/16 for pre-DS) but can over time increase that to a total of 48 (possibly even more) and in addition you finally get to play as Link on an F-Zero track!

7 is okay IMO, it's a bit slow.

While MK Wii lacks antigravity and customization, MK 8 lacks quarter pipes, traditional inside drift, and wheelies.

I can live without quarter pipes. They were useless for the most part.

It was an interesting split option. You could go up a quarterpipe and grab an item box and a speed boost, your you could go the direct route

If you say that the MK8 is worse than that, you really need to play some MK8.

I always disliked quarter pipes because I got flung off them. Best option is usually to try and "glide" on them so you get a speed boost while grabbing an item. If you stay in the air for longer, you actually lose time.

I do miss wheelies. Was disappointed when bikes returned with no wheelies. Even if they were changed so they didn't boost speed, it would have been fun to have them, I just thought they felt cool.

What do you notice about most of the items that are broken vs. the ones that aren't? Most of the items that aren't broken are pretty much the only ones you get in 1st place, whereas the ones that aren't will only be given to lesser placed players. Now add a bunch of other broken items into the mix. Doesn't that seem a little unfair to the 1st place player? He has about half a dozen destructive items to worry about and has no way to defend against them and gained absolutely nothing to defend against them. That's what makes the game broken, there's no balance among the item list.

With the exception of Lightning Cloud, none of these avoidance methods are particularly effective. You have no way of controlling when you're in the air to avoid the POW Block, and avoiding a Star or Mega Mushroom requires you to have quick reflexes and take your eyes off the road (also, those items give buffs to speed and size, so it's harder to dodge). It's near impossible to dodge them with skill.

If you take the impact away from those items, they don't really help you though.

That's exactly why the game is imbalanced though, there's too many destructive items to worry about and no real way to counter them. The item system is entirely skewed in favor of less skilled racers. Nothing short of removing those items would've fixed it.

If you want to talk balance, the Super Horn is probably the best bet for actually balancing the items, if only because it can counter the single most threatening item in the game. That is more something that they can tweak to improve the balance, maybe something like this:

-10-20% of getting it in 1st place (this makes it so it's common enough that it can realistically be available when you need it, but not so common that you can spam it).
-Can no longer flip out other racers (this prevents the first place racer from having too great an advantage).
-Maybe it disappears after a certain amount of time? (preventing the first place racer from hoarding it the entire race to prevent any item from affecting them)

That would make it reasonably useful as a first place defensive item I think.

It's not an on-off. They can just make them less effective while conveying the same sense of intensity and scale. For example, they could make the POW block only function on the two racers in front of and behind you. They could reduce the duration of time you have the Mega Mushroom.

Or they could offer high placing players stronger defensive items for last place offensive items. MK8 instead just scales back everything. 1st Place players have weaker defenses, while last place players have fewer come back options. IMO, that's an inferior experience, even if it's more balanced.

But then you would have a hard time catching up.

It has to be scaled back, otherwise the outcome of the race falls entirely out of your control. Loading up the higher placing players with tons of defensive items won't solve the problem, because then the first place player can simply wall everything. You need enough options to keep the racing from being too boring but not too much that you have no control over your performance.

So with Mario Kart 8, I really enjoy it, but people are bashing Mario Kart Wii too hard, imo. There were great things about the Wii, like introducing online with 12 racers, bikes and wheelies (overpowered), but some of the mechanics that are in play tended to hurt the experience. Blue Shells were an absolute nuisance in MKW, while in MK8 they are really well controlled and appear rarely. The physics were wonky in MKW, but it's better than the pinball-like physics in MK8. I really think both are great on their own right, but when compared, there's a drastic difference in gameplay and preference. I really would have liked a mix of MKW and MK8 mechanics, physics, gameplay, etc..