• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Mario Kart 8 Info Thread

I was thinking about how Tournaments will work in this game, I haven't played 7 so am not familiar with the details.

Once a player joins a tournament is that them essentially committed in forever?, i.e. is their spot always reserved for the next round/day?.
Can players easily leave / be kicked from tournaments?

From what I remember, management of a tournament is done by the creator. I have no clue about leaving, but you can be DQ'd by the creator if cheating (Wuhu for example). They may change how it is done in 8 though. I do not remember allowing repeats for example.

Eurogamer said:
Mario Kart 8 includes customizable tournaments players can set up online using parameters for day, time, difficulty, allowed items, vehicles and more. Tournaments can be set to repeat — for example, competitions set every Sunday night — and are available to both friends and the general public, depending on the setting. Players will be able to search for tournaments by code, racing type and more.
 
After the amazing Tropical Freeze, I would disappointed if Kart went back to the fuzzy visual boards of the past games. I want a legit leaderboard showing my friends and I ranked against each other.

Mario Kart Wii had friends leaderboards.
But I don't know how it's handled in MK8, I really hope it has a good Time Trials mode.
 
I guess it will be around Super Mario 3D World metacritic levels.

For what's worth, the game tries to spin the series a bit more than 3D World and has freshier changes so this should be reflected in the reviews.
 
Oh did it? I only vaguely remember the visual graph thing.

But I hope so, Jucksalbe. For your sake........

Haha, still waiting for SMK to be released in NA.
You could sort this bubble leaderboards by friends in MK Wii. I don't think there was anything like that in MK7.

Another Wii U game with a metacritic of 85+?

Mario Kart 7 has a metacritic score of 85. I guess MK8 will do slightly better.
 
Embargo ends in 3 days.

Another Wii U game with a metacritic of 85+?
It'll probably land right on 85. As long as it's higher than MK Wii (82) I'm happy. Not for myself since I'm going to buy and love the game anyway but I want it to succeed on the press side since, well, Nintendo needs good press.
 
Mario Kart Wii had friends leaderboards.
But I don't know how it's handled in MK8, I really hope it has a good Time Trials mode.

I'm hoping that the Time Trial mode lets you upload a video of your best run directly onto the leaderboard like you could in Donkey Kong, but I'm unsure if that is going to happen now that we have MKTV.
 
It definitely seems as though all presentation outside of the actual races is kept very minimal. The menus are pretty bland, there's no end-of-race ceremony, and everything is pretty cut and dry.

This isn't a problem, but it's probably telling about how rushed they were to finish this game that they didn't spend a lot of time on anything other than the races and MKTV.
 
I guess it will be around Super Mario 3D World metacritic levels.

For what's worth, the game tries to spin the series a bit more than 3D World and has freshier changes so this should be reflected in the reviews.

Does it really? 3DW was the first 3D Mario with 4 player co-op, not to mention everything else they did in terms of gameplay and level design. MK8 just seems like a really polished new Mario Kart (which is about what you'd expect from the next iteration in a racing game anyways).
 
It definitely seems as though all presentation outside of the actual races is kept very minimal. The menus are pretty bland, there's no end-of-race ceremony, and everything is pretty cut and dry.

This isn't a problem, but it's probably telling about how rushed they were to finish this game that they didn't spend a lot of time on anything other than the races and MKTV.
Which is why I don't see this game breaking 90 on Metacritic. Some folks will enjoy the presentation, others won't. It'll be divisive.

Plus things like Battle Mode.

Any aspects of the game even potentially affected by time constraints will work against it.

That said the core game and the new features seem pretty sweet so hopefully it'll be enough to make the entire package worthwhile to everyone.
 
Reviews are in going to be in the 70s.

Pros: It has racing and online.

Cons: Doesn't have the feel of next gen. Won't save Wii U.

I'm expecting 90+ metacritic.
 
Would someone care to explain to me exactly how this tournament mode works? Say you have a two hour tournament with a race count of 4 - does that mean you have to complete four races within the assigned two hours to compete? Or do you have to be there at the exact start time to get in? Can you do more than four races to improve your tournament standing, sort of like timed levels with infinite tries in Trackmania?

I tried to google it, but couldn't find any details..
 
cmon guys don't be so negative. SM3DW got excellent reviews.

I'm guessing average scores to be high 80s to low 90s

Does Metacritic have sub-rankings to compare games within the same genre? For example, could a particular game like MK8 get an 80 overall score compared to all games, but a 90 when compared to other racing/kart racing games?

If not, seems like there should be.
 
so having my Wii U set at 1080p will not cause any issue here right? I really never understood if it affected frame rates or performance when you do not set it to match a games native res
 
so having my Wii U set at 1080p will not cause any issue here right? I really never understood if it affected frame rates or performance when you do not set it to match a games native res

There's a hardware scaler in the Wii U that will upscale the image to 1080p without affecting performance. It's not like on PS3 where upscaling is a mess.
 
Jose Otero of IGN posted this image.

jTBvSyK.jpg


It's going to review pretty well, I think.
 
I think I actually like the highlight reel more than the little ceremony in the latest ones.

I do miss the podium though.

Yeah, now that I think about it, I would end up liking the highlight reel more than the ceremony footage. The only downside is that the ceremony has been almost like a "tradition" thing in Mario Kart games but oh well, change is always good.

Embargo ends in 3 days.

Another Wii U game with a metacritic of 85+?

I'm confident it will. I mean, all MK games score pretty well anyways. IGN for example has been praising the game a lot both on their podcasts or on preview articles, that's a good sign so at least in that website I can see it scoring 9.5 or higher... But also I can see another websites removing points of the score because of the lack of actual arena battles, no local multiplayer one with the Gamepad and another on the TV simultaneously and stuff like that, but other than that... MK8 is aiming to be the best Mario Kart game ever! it just screams fun and good time all over it and I'm craving some of that feeling in a videogame lately.

Edit: The post above me. Yep just what I was mention about IGN :)! That's a lot of playtime already for a game to be reviewed! Good sign.
 
Jose Otero of IGN posted this image.

jTBvSyK.jpg


It's going to review pretty well, I think.
I wonder how many hours reviewers usually put into games, multiplayer or not.

50ish hours for that source and reviews are embargoed until a few days from now.

Maybe it is a good sign. And again I know the wait is hard but I'm glad review copies went out early. Means that the press has more time to give the game the right amount of attention. Regardless of scores we'll maybe see some nice in-depth reviews that weren't necessarily rushed to the deadline.
 
Has there been confirmation regarding the possibility if local multiplayer will allow 1 player to use the gamepad and another to use the tv to avoid splitscreen?

I'm trying to keep up with this thread but admittedly did not read all 81 pages so apologies if this has already been addressed.
 
Has there been confirmation regarding the possibility if local multiplayer will allow 1 player to use the gamepad and another to use the tv to avoid splitscreen?

I'm trying to keep up with this thread but admittedly did not read all 81 pages so apologies if this has already been addressed.

Sorry, no, you can't do that.
 
I wonder how many hours reviewers usually put into games, multiplayer or not.

50ish hours for that source and reviews are embargoed until a few days from now.

Maybe it is a good sign. And again I know the wait is hard but I'm glad review copies went out early. Means that the press has more time to give the game the right amount of attention. Regardless of scores we'll maybe see some nice in-depth reviews that weren't necessarily rushed to the deadline.
Honestly, given that Mario Kart really isn't the type of game you need to put even half of those hours into to see everything, I'd say it's very positive since it means they've been playing it way more than they need to for the review. For another type of game those hours wouldn't mean much though
 
Really? Would have thought that was a good means to push the unique functionality of the Wii-U pad.
I think everyone, even Nintendo, would agree on that. It's a no-brainer feature.

Of course, if it caused any sort of performance issues at all that would drop the experience below Nintendo's standards, I could see why they chose not to include it.
 
Don't know if it's already been posted elsewhere, but another German MK8 review is out.

ComputerBild Spiele: Sehr Gut - 1,43 (~9.1/10)

Summary (liberal translation) at the end of the review:

Difficulty of getting started - 10/10
"No matter if young or old, Amateur or Pro Driver - anyone will easily understand the game"

Graphics/Sound Quality - 9/10
"Animations for even the smallest details, immense profits from the jump to HD. Excellent music."

Controls - 9/10
"Motion Controls are fun, Menu presets are sadly missing (no idea what they mean with this)"

Single Player - 8/10
"Starts relatively easy, the new tracks are awesome. Not as much fun long-time."

Multiplayer - 10/10
"No matter if with two or up to four players - clearly the highlight of Mario Kart 8"

How well does the game run?
"No forced installation, short loading times"

Score: 1,43 (9.1/10)



I took pics of the summary as a proof, but won't post them here due to the no-scan rule. Will happily provide them to a mod if asked for^^
 
Don't know if it's already been posted elsewhere, but another German MK8 review is out.

ComputerBild Spiele: Sehr Gut - 1,43 (~9.1/10)

Summary (liberal translation) at the end of the review:

Difficulty of getting started - 10/10
"No matter if young or old, Amateur or Pro Driver - anyone will easily understand the game"

Graphics/Sound Quality - 9/10
"Animations for even the smallest details, immense profits from the jump to HD. Excellent music."

Controls - 9/10
"Motion Controls are fun, Menu presets are sadly missing (no idea what they mean with this)"

Single Player - 8/10
"Starts relatively easy, the new tracks are awesome. Not as much fun long-time."

Multiplayer - 10/10
"No matter if with two or up to four players - clearly the highlight of Mario Kart 8"

How well does the game run?
"No forced installation, short loading times"

Score: 1,43 (9.1/10)



I took pics of the summary as a proof, but won't post them here due to the no-scan rule. Will happily provide them to a mod if asked for^^

Looks good. Makes the wait even more unbearable.
 
Don't know if it's already been posted elsewhere, but another German MK8 review is out.

ComputerBild Spiele: Sehr Gut - 1,43 (~9.1/10)

Summary (liberal translation) at the end of the review:

Difficulty of getting started - 10/10
"No matter if young or old, Amateur or Pro Driver - anyone will easily understand the game"

Graphics/Sound Quality - 9/10
"Animations for even the smallest details, immense profits from the jump to HD. Excellent music."

Controls - 9/10
"Motion Controls are fun, Menu presets are sadly missing (no idea what they mean with this)"

Single Player - 8/10
"Starts relatively easy, the new tracks are awesome. Not as much fun long-time."

Multiplayer - 10/10
"No matter if with two or up to four players - clearly the highlight of Mario Kart 8"

How well does the game run?
"No forced installation, short loading times"

Score: 1,43 (9.1/10)



I took pics of the summary as a proof, but won't post them here due to the no-scan rule. Will happily provide them to a mod if asked for^^

Saw that too 4 days ago, lol, forgot to inform you guys in here about that review... :/
 
Checking in again to see where you guys in the USA are buying your RETAIL DISK COPIES. What's the general consensus for best deal/preorder bonus? I definitely want Day 1.
 
Checking in again to see where you guys in the USA are buying your RETAIL DISK COPIES. What's the general consensus for best deal/preorder bonus? I definitely want Day 1.

You get 10 bucks worth of gas at Best Buy I think.

That's where I plan to preorder my copy.
 
You get 10 bucks worth of gas at Best Buy I think.

That's where I plan to preorder my copy.

Heh, woo! I'd rather get some preorder bonus that you can't BUY from stores, or maybe money off another nintendo game (like donkey kong TF, which I dont have yet.)
 
Top Bottom