I've been raging about this in numerous threads now and I'll continue here: There is NO single-player Verus mode option in this game. What the hell, Nintendo?
For those who don't know, the U.S. website and a reporter with a review copy at GameXplain have both confirmed that Versus mode is multiplayer only. That means that you can't just pick your favorite track and race against seven CPUs with items and everything. Nope. If you want to race against a full field of CPUs with items and everything, you'll have to stick to Grand Prixs, which means you'll have to play four courses at a time.
So you want to play Rainbow Road and just Rainbow Road, firing shells and lobbing fireballs at the CPU as you race for first? Too bad. You'll have to play through DK Jungle, Rosalina's Ice World and Bowser's Castle first. I hope you have 15 minutes to spare before you get to the course you wanted to play. So much for it being a pick-up-and-play title.
It's simply mind-boggling they took out single-player Versus. Mario Kart DS had it. Mario Kart Wii had it. Even Super Circuit had it in the form of Quick Race. In MKDS you could even tally points from course to couse or set the track selection to random. Now we're back to the Dark Ages of MK64 and Double Dash where the only way to race against the CPU is to go through an entire freaking cup.
It totally limits our ability to explore these wonderful courses in anything but Time Trials. I know many people will play online all the time, but what about when you're, y'know, on the road out of range of Wi-Fi? Or when you just want to play a single track by yourself because you have time for one track and not a whole cup? Imagine if [insert game here] made you play three levels you didn't want to play before letting you play the level you want to play, and it did this everytime you played.
The guy at GameXplain has unlocked everything. Every character -- there is no Waluigi, btw -- and every mode. And there is no way to do single-player Versus. Even if you go into multiplayer, you still have to confirm multiple human players before advancing.
What the hell, Nintendo? I have no doubt that at its core this is the best Mario Kart yet, and it's certainly one of my most anticipated games this year (and this year has been AWESOME for us multi-plats), but this blundering design oversight cripples the game's potential and will forever sully it as, "It's great, but oh what it could've been."
I guess the one small comfort here is that at least ALL the courses are great, which means having to play through a few to get to the one you want won't be so much a chore as it will take up time...