Mario Kart 8

I don't see how anyone can complain about this. It's both free and optional. Don't like it? Don't download it! I know I won't.

Also, it means we have that quite brilliant advert, which I'm going to link to again.

Balladeer wrote:

I don't see how anyone can complain about this.  It's both free and optional.  Don't like it?  Don't download it!  I know I won't.

Also, it means we have that quite brilliant advert, which I'm going to link to again.

It's not an awful piece of product placement, no, but if Nintendo can get away with this, who knows what they might try next time? But yes, provided you can't pick this vehicle when playing online I won't be particularly bothered about its existence.

Now I can finish last place in style!   

Also, as far as product placement goes, its a pretty classy one. Doritos and Dew it ain't.

Balladeer wrote:

I don't see how anyone can complain about this.  

Because it's extremely ugly and has no purpose. I very much doubt the main audience of mario kart 8 is even capable of buying a mercedes, much less interested. It's a waste of dev time and money that, in a game where a good portion of the cast are already questionable, would have been far better spent adding new characters and karts. At least with things like pac-man in smash I can get why it happened, this just seems pointless.

On top of that why couldn't it be the classy mercedes silver? Why grey? Every car ever is grey, and aside from that just being a naturally boring colour it also takes away the feel of exclusivity, in my opinion at least.

Well presumably Nintendo were paid to do it, so it's not really a waste of money. It's a bit of fun and if it comes here, im totally gonna use it just to be annoying.

Athrun888 wrote:

Balladeer wrote:

I don't see how anyone can complain about this.  

It's a waste of dev time and money

I wouldn't go that far. This is a pretty small sacrifice if it's to please Nintendo's hungry investors.

Drunkalilly wrote:

Well presumably Nintendo were paid to do it, so it's not really a waste of money.

^That. It's more likely that Merc bankrolling the relevant development time would have been a condition of the tie-in.

Aye. And it's a car (has a car advert ever persuaded you to buy a car?), not a pay-day loan firm. It's cool, guys.

Is anyone going to be playing this evening?

I'm up for some games if everyone else is.

Sounds like a plan

Hasn't done badly, this. Not that I care about sales figures or anything...  

I'm up for playing either this or Mario Kart 7 online this evening.

Aye, me too. Could we nick it in before the 9pm football match? I'd start at 8 if that suited folk?

Aye 8 would be good for me too.

8, sorted. Connection pending, meet me at the starting line! 

Thought I'd briefly resurrect this to say that I had my first proper shot at four-player MK8 yesterday, with a bunch of London friends and Mr. Z. Jones. It was, as might be suspected, tremendous fun. Also, we discovered two ways to accommodate more than four people:

• Put players into teams, and pass the controller at the end of each lap;
  
• Have one player holding the Wiimote and the other the nunchuk.

Bottom line is that it's a fantastic party game, although those who are a bit better should probably give themselves a handicap. Or stick to trolling the other players.

It really is as good as you'd expect, I've had a number of multiplayer sessions in the last few weeks and even though I usually win it's still top notch.

I'm still loving this game, it just plays a very good game of new-gen Mario Kart to the point that it's very hard to go back to 7 and not find it lacking in the things 8 does so well. So many things have been redesigned and refined, it's never been more satisfying to go up a few places mid-race.

As for the August update, I'm excited. One of my minor complaints was the lack of any records or statistics, so I'm looking forward to seeing that being added in. And the Mercedes DLC got sweeter now they've added in the classic Silver Arrow. It looks a bit like the Monopoly Car, and I drive as Wario, so...

Balladeer wrote:

• Put players into teams, and pass the controller at the end of each lap;
  

We did a bit of that one, with the standard Drunkabuska addition of the player who want driving drinking for the position their partner finished in.

Slightly more interesting than a Mercedes.
They had me at more tracks, but the Zelda angle pushes this to the next level.

That's brilliant news. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant news.

Brilliant.

Also: WORTH £7!

Superb stuff!

The non Mario universe characters/tracks will be odd to see at first but its still superb, nice to see Wario's gold mine will be making a return.

That news is making it even harder for me to not be buying a wii u (yet)! Exciting stuff to see.

Nintendo shows how's DLC should be done, wonder if we will ever see Mario Kart: SMASH at some stage.

As didn't the main producer once say he's thought about that for a long time but never has as he didn't feel the time was right but if everyone goes downloads this will we suddenly see more none-mario universe appear as DLC or just in a future game.