Mario Kart 8 is a fantastic game. It has been doing wonders for Nintendo for the Wii U and is definitely one of the best Mario Karts they have put out yet. It was almost my personal favorite because of it's awesome track design and really great takes on the retro courses - almost.
Here's the deal, I feel weird that a couple of these complaints are here for a Mario Kart, but they still hamper the fun I could have. The way this game looks and feels is truly fantastic, and like I said, the course design is pretty great. I played a few online matches the other night and had an easy enough time joining friends and hopping right into races, but the lack of chat was a little weird. I'm ok with having it off with people I don't know because of the frustration of Mario Kart items that would have everyone screaming into my ear, but I would like better chatting with friends. When in a lobby with just friends, you can chat via the GamePad controller itself, but during a race, nothing. I found that to be an odd omission, and honestly, I feel like they should have an option to have chat throughout.
That leads me into my second complain - asynchronous tournaments. The first thing I thought when I got home with Mario Kart 8 was "I should set up a weekend tournament with my friends". What I thought would be cool is if we set a few day timer on it, and we could just race best times in a set of tracks. Sadly, there is only the option to play with your friends at the same time. I think, and hope they add, an asynchronous system for this could be really cool and would make competing with friends a little more fun as I wouldn't have to get everyone together every time.
What happened to the Battle Mode? How did they think that NOT doing specific battle arenas was a good idea? As it is right now, you are just playing a normal race track and battling each other, which is not any fun. Your best option is to select Moo Moo Meadows and tell everyone they can't leave the spot with the Monty Moles. I messed around with it and found it to be the worst they have done for this mode, and it's been going downhill since the DS in my opinion.
Lastly, and this one baffles me the most, how was there not a full screen option for the tv and gamepad for multiplayer? When Sonic and Sega All-Star Racing Transformed released, it was a highlight feature. I can have a full screen on the gamepad, and the tv wasn't split either. The Gamepad is already housing a lot of things you can switch to on the fly, so I feel like it could easily have just a forced "gamepad only mode" or something. And it runs and looks pretty good on the gamepad as well, unlike a more noticeable drop in graphics from Sonic.
But, alas, it's still a great game. I seriously thought about where to put it in the rest of the series, and if I based it solely on the course design, the retro remixes and the way this game plays, it's tops. The Battle Mode brings it down a couple points and the online needs some help, but hey, it's still fun.
-Eddie
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