Mario Kart 8

This all looks great.
But, Lakitu better not have Elmo's voice in this.

Okay...32 tracks is a bit low for a $60 game, but the tracks look pretty good so I'm not worried about it. Why would they choose N64 Rainbow Road when DS Rainbow Road has anti-gravity in it? It would make PERFECT SENSE to be the retro Rainbow Road in the game...

Not that I'm saying the game looks bad or anything, in fact I think it looks like the best Wii U game so far. (even better than Pikmin 3) I'm just kind of disappointed by those 2 pieces of info. Everything else seems interesting.

I just read online that N64 Rainbow Road has ONE LAP with sections, like the MK7 Rainbow Road. I understand it's a long course, probably the longest in the entire series, but really? I can't imagine playing through a track in one lap would be very fun, especially when most of the items would be pointless anyway.

I've heard it's only sections like in MK7's Rainbow Road. I doubt they would change it for each lap when it's already been a course before, but I don't know, I could be wrong. The course was really long in MK64, but they could at least just make it 2 laps instead of 3.

It's just sections now since they wanted to reduce how long that track took.

Here's Q and A and the Discussion videos from GameXplain.





It seems like there might be some other new characters since GameXplain could not talk about any other characters and I'm liking the new item system.

I like being able to keep items when you fall down a pit, but I like to hold shells and bananas behind the kart to avoid incoming red shells. I guess you'll still be able to sort of do that though. But about the triple bananas, that's just weird. I can't really imagine that. (and I haven't watched any recent gameplay so I don't know what it looks like)

Is Diddy Kong making a return?



This comes from the ONM Spain website. It seems to have been a slip up though or is it.

OMN director wrote:ONM Spain director Juan Carlos Garcia has said that this was printed in error. The character may indeed appear in the final game, but the magazine staff has no advance info on this. Diddy was included by mistake.

Source

Speaking of characters we now have a pic of the character select screen.



Since Diddy Kong was kind of linked he is likely below Toadette on the select screen. Dry Bowser or Bowser Jr might be next to Morton since it seems like that's the Koopa row. Lastly there's a box near Baby Daisy that could be Birdo since she was seen on the Royal Raceway adds. However Baby Mario, Baby Luigi, Baby Peach and Baby Daisy are 2 down from there adult counterparts so a Baby Rosalina 2 rows down from the regular Rosalina could happen.

I really hope Birdo is a no-show.
Those three spots I want Diddy, Bowser Jr. and Nabbit.

I don't care about Diddy, give me Baby Metal Mario!

I don't really care what they do with the roster since I'll likely wind up using Rosalina for at least 90% of the time I play the game. XD But it'd be nice to see him back I suppose. I'd rather see Funky, I always liked him in the DK games, and since he was in the Wii version it would make sense for him to be back again.

A Wii U Mario Kart 8 bundle has been leaked, possibly confirmed for release in Europe:



I hope this is true and that it comes to all regions where the Wii U has been released. A bundle was really needed for this, so they can't skip over the opportunity now.

Yeah, a bundle with this game in NA would sell like mad for the year.

Luma Party wrote:Yeah, a bundle with this game in NA would sell like mad for the year.

Longer then then that since this is Mario Kart were talking about. Very smart move by Nintendo and I would get this bundle if I did not have a Wii U yet.

The bundle was real. There will apparently be both a Mario Mario Kart 8 bundle and a Luigi Mario Kart 8 bundle. Here's pics:

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Woah. Nintendo really is pushing Mario Kart 8, which makes a lot of sense considering Mario Kart Wii was one of the best selling games of all time. This should REALLY help Wii U sales, at least for a little while.