READY REVIEW: MARIO 8

One of Nintendo's most loved Mario Series has made its way to Wii U and has became a major success within the amount of time its been released. Mario Kart 8 is known to be the savior of the Wii U after months of non-hyped games the console has been releasing and with E3 announcing a few new features for Mario Kart 8, I am sure it'll get more praise than it already does.

Here are some of the pros and cons I have with the game and how it can improve:

Likes

• Overall design/attention to detail
  
• New Characters - Koopalings
• Monster/Map Interferences throughout the maps - Seems a bit harder to dodge in some cases which is a good thing unlike in the previous Mario Karts where it was easy to get away from most of the stage distractions
• Anti-gravity feauture
• Items - Super Horn (finally, a way to stop the infamous Blue Shell), Piranha Plant (chomps on anything in it's path and gives speed boost while doing so), Fireball (being able to fire as many as you want within a specific amount of time), Crazy 8 (whats better than having 1 good item? having 8 of them of course!) Boomerang (3 tries to knock opponents and you can get more than one racer in one shot)
• Maps - You can tell the developers spent a lot of time making sure the maps looked and felt great for the racers
• Vehicle Customization - More balanced and allows racers to create a favorite setup of their own
• Coins - Increases boost and unlocks vehicle parts
  
• Music
  
• Faster pick-me-up recover
• Item Boxes spawn quicker
• Recovery time seems more reasonable, especially when slipping on banana peels
• Shortcuts on various maps
• Mario Kart TV feature + Slow Mo action
  
• Online Mode - Tournaments Feature, Regional option

Dislikes

• Some maps felt like it was lacking some creativity and  not challenging
  
• Coin being an item (even though it does give you speed boost, its practically pointless)
  
• Online play seems to be having a lot of drops
  
• Being able to only choose 3 maps when playing VS mode in Online Gameplay
  
• Battle Mode - Maps choices don't seem fitting for this mode, its too big to battle in
• Team Attack on Battle Mode (CPUs tend to kill me first before my opponents do which is frustrating)
  
• Having two versions of Rainbow Road which could've been a slot for another new map (stick to one Rainbow Road)
  

Improvements (Add/Takeout)
Add

• Fake Item Box (good decoy/stopper item which was effective in previous Mario Kart versions)
• Super Horn should be able to cancel out Thunder Item
  
• DLC - Old maps, more Characters & Vehicle Parts
• Old or smaller Battle Maps for Battle Mode
• Better Online servers
• Indicator to let the racer know they are speeding up from coins (once they get 10 coins, a boost or speed streaks would help)
• Option to turn off Team Attack in Battle Mode
• The ability to steal items if a racer has an item in their hand or simply add the Ghost Item
  

Takeout

• Battle Maps (replace them)
  
• Coin Item (replace)
  
  

Overall Rating: 9/10 (nearly perfect for me but there are minor things that I would change to make it solid)

Final Words: Definitely a good pickup and game. I would recommend grabbing a copy if you love the Mario Kart series or want to experience something fresh and new. If you would like to play together, feel free to add me on Wii U Friends!

Username: anthooony