As I said, I’ve been playing a lot games in my time off from school and the just general slow down in my work load in general.  I have to say that beyond the shadow of a doubt, MarioKart 7 has been the one to hold my attention the longest.  The game is amazingly well done, polished, gets a 10/10 in nostalgia induction.

Edit: Typos 

Rating: 95 / 100

The game is more of the same turtle-slinging greatness we’ve come to expect from such an established franchise.  The game is polished, addictive, fun, and just fresh enough to not feel like a clone of the previous iterations.

There are some race exploits that if you are playing online might be a bit annoying because people will use them, somewhat ruining the spirit of the game. It’s unclear whether Nintendo plans to do anything.

The game, at it’s heart, is the same tutle-shell slinging fun that we’ve come to expect from a MarioKart game.  The game is just as fun and addictive as previous iterations in the series, but makes some really exciting improvements.  

The game starts off and you pick one of several cups (you unlock more as you race more) and select one of 8 characters — all returners to the series.  Again, more characters are unlocked — you have the option to play as your Mii after getting first in all the 50cc races, and getting first in certain 150cc rates unlocks new characters for you.  

After selecting your character, you go on to your kart customization.  This is probably the biggest change over the previous iterations — characters are no long tied to karts, and any character to jump in any kart.  The karts themselves are now customizable with different wheels and different gliders.  So there are thousands of combinations of cart-wheels-gliders.  To start though, you only get a few options of karts and wheels, and only one glider.  You unlock the rest through one of the new mechanics in game – collecting coins.  

Harkening back to Mario adventure games. the tracks all include coins now which can be collected as your race.  You can collect up to 10 at one time, and any time you are hit by a weapon, or fall off the track, you lose coins.  It’s actually quite a challenge to finish some of the races with the max 10 coins because of how often you get hit with shells, or hit bananas, or anything like that.  Every 50 coins you get, you unlock a new customization, until you collect approximately 500 coins, then it goes every 100 you unlock a new customization.  In other words, it’ll take you a while to collect all the customizations.  

The nice aspect of this system is that the character is the center of all the coins – so coins I collect in single player, local multiplayer, and online multiplayer all add to your total.  So if you prefer to just race online against karters from around the world, you will continue to unlock customizations.  Overall, a very intuitive system.  

In terms of the tracks themselves, Nintendo makes excellent use of their technology and the tracks all feel unique and are fun to run again and again and again.  The use of the glider in the game adds a new dimension to the race, as depending on how you fly it, you can extent your flight quite a ways (but don’t worry, red shells will still be able to hit you in the air, heh).  Additionally, players can also drive under water in most of the tracks, but there are still some places that trigger the “you fell off the world” animation.  

Overall, the game is great.  It’s addictive, and fun and provides a lot of different opportunities to play different ways.  The kart customizations are a welcome and fun addition to the game, and you’ll spend hours just trying out different configurations to determine which one fits your play style.  If you have a 3DS, my verdict on this game 100% purchase.  I’ve played it more than any other game over the last month, and don’t regret of moment of it.