Player Profile: Mario Kart 8 Championship - Finalists 5-8

As we hope you're aware, we've teamed up with the Official Nintendo UK Store to run the Mario Kart 8 Championship 2014 in the UK, looking for the country's fastest racer who'll receive some fantastic prizes.

This Championship has four online heats, with the top three in each of those heats then progressing to a live final at EGX London - next week - on Saturday 27th September. With all four heats now completed we're taking some time to meet the finalists ahead of the Grand Final, having already met finalists 1-4 previously we now move on to the next batch of top Mario Kart 8 racers.

Finalist #5

Name: Mark "Yosher☆RL☆" Johns

Nintendo Network ID: Yosher75

Qualified: Heat 2, 234 point (2nd place)

Which was your first Mario Kart game?
Mario Kart Wii

Which character do you play as in MK8?
Light Blue Yoshi, It combines my favourite character and colour into one

What is your favourite new feature of MK8?
MKTV

Which is your favourite Mario Kart game?
Mario Kart Wii

What is your favourite memory of playing Mario Kart?
Passing 11 racers all hit from various super horns at the first set of items and avoiding them as Luigi and performing a massive Luigi Deathstare

Which is your favourite Nintendo game series?
Kid Icarus

Which is your favourite Nintendo system of all time?
Wii U

How do you feel about competing in a live final at EGX London?
Nervous though Excited

Finalist #6

Name: Suz

Qualified: Heat 2, 232 points (3rd place)

Which was your first Mario Kart game?
Double dash, but I only really starting loving the game from Mario Kart DS when online play was introduced

Which character do you play as in MK8, and why?
Wario, because of his attitude "I'ma gonna win!"

What is your favourite new feature of MK8?
The time trial leader boards and ability to download ghosts

Which is your favourite Mario Kart game?
Mario Kart 7

What is your favourite memory of playing Mario Kart?
Dodging my first blue shell with a mushroom!

Which is your favourite Nintendo game series?
If i'm not playing Mario Kart, I'm probably playing Monster Hunter.

Which is your favourite Nintendo system of all time?
3DS

How do you feel about competing in a live final at EGX London?
As it says in the game - "Go easy on me!"

Finalist #7

Name: Jamie Skepper

Nintendo Network ID: Jamie2794

Qualified: Heat 3, 240 points (1st place, maximum points)

Which was your first Mario Kart game?
My first Mario Kart game was Super Mario Kart for the SNES

Which character do you play as in MK8, and why?
I switch between Rosalina and the Mii depending on how serious I'm playing. If I'm just playing casually I'll typically use Rosalina, as she's my favourite character. Otherwise I use the Mii (heavy weight class) as it has the tied highest speed along with Wario, Morton and Bowser.

What is your favourite new feature of MK8?
That would have to be the anti-gravity sections. They open up a whole range of possibilities in track design, which makes me excited for what's to come in the future DLC packs.

Which is your favourite Mario Kart game?
Mario Kart Wii. Mostly because it was the first one in the series where online multiplayer was good enough for a lot of people to play at once, and also was the first to have 12 player rooms, which I feel is a huge improvement over 8 player rooms. I also really liked the game mechanics which kept me playing it for years.

What is your favourite memory of playing Mario Kart?
I'm not too sure on a single favourite memory, but if I had to name one it would be messing around in online rooms with friends, it was always a lot of fun!

Which is your favourite Nintendo game series?
Another one I'm not sure on. If I had to name some it'd be either Pokemon, The Mario RPG games (such as the Paper Mario or the Mario & Luigi series) or Mario Kart. Super Smash bros. coming close behind.

Which is your favourite Nintendo system of all time?
The Gamecube for me. It had so many great games that I loved playing and I hope more games of that quality are released in the future.

How do you feel about competing in a live final at EGX London?
I'm actually pretty excited, a few people I know online have also qualified so it'll be nice to meet them in person for the first time. However when it comes to the actual competition I have a feeling I'll be incredibly nervous!

Finalist #8

Name: Toby Sefton

Qualified: Heat 3, 232 points (2nd place)

Which was your first Mario Kart game?
Mario Kart 64.

Which character do you play as in MK8, and why?
Rosalina. She has been my go-to character ever since her playable debut in Mario Kart Wii. I just love her design, personality and galaxy theme. It also helps that she's one of the faster characters as the light​​weights seem incredibly slow in this game.

What is your favourite new feature of MK8?
The fact that it's the first Mario Kart game in HD. The anti-gravity combined with the greatly improved visual aesthetics really brings this game to life to provide a sense of real world adventure.

Which is your favourite Mario Kart game?
Mario Kart Wii. Although it didn't suit my preferred control method of a Wii Wheel, it had the most skill based elements necessary to consistently win and relied much less on luck. In my opinion the item distribution was the most balanced, the tracks were all equally fun and the game had a good quality roster. It is also for these reasons that I found the game to have the most replay value. The only two things I didn't like were the respawn points and that characters had individual stat boosts that made a couple of characters unnecessarily dominate online rooms.

What is your favourite memory of playing Mario Kart?
There are too many for me to choose. Honestly, something as simple as beating skilled players in Mario Kart Wii using one of the slowest characters, Dry Bones, I found to be amusing.

Which is your favourite Nintendo game series?
Mario Kart, Super Smash Brothers and Super Mario Galaxy. I like them all equally.

Which is your favourite Nintendo system of all time?
Wii U. The year of Luigi may be over, but I'm still enjoying the generation of Rosalina!

How do you feel about competing in a live final at EGX London?
I'm just eager to get down to EGX and enjoy the experience!

Thank you to our finalists for taking part in this article and thank you to everyone who has entered our Mario Kart 8 Championship so far, look out for one more article next week introducing finalists 9-12.

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