A major NDA just dropped for Mario Kart 8, and with it comes not only an impressive 60FPS trailer, but a giant drop of information for the game. As you can see from the cover image alone, that is Rainbow Road 64, and that is Metal Mario racing through it. We’ll go through the major details for you here.
So, straight out the gate, Nintendo has revealed sixteen of the game’s 32 courses are completely new, and 16 are returning from older games, but remade from the ground up to incorporate the antigravity mechanic. Among the older courses are Rainbow Road from Mario Kart 64, Moo Moo Meadows from Mario Kart Wii, Toad’s Turnpike from Mario Kart 64, Donut Plains from Super Mario Kart, and Mario Circuit from Mario Kart Advance.
It has the largest roster of playable characters for any Mario Kart to date. So far, these have been confirmed.
- Mario
- Luigi
- Peach
- Daisy
- Yoshi
- Bowser
- Donkey Kong
- Toad
- Toadette
- Koopa Troopa
- Wario
- Waluigi
- Rosalina
- Baby Mario
- Baby Luigi
- Baby Peach
- Baby Daisy
- Larry Koopa
- Morton Koopa Jr.
- Wendy O. Koopa
- Iggy Koopa
- Roy Koopa
- Lemmy Koopa
- Ludwig von Koopa
- Metal Mario
- Shy Guy
- Lakitu
In terms of mechanics, they revealed two new, but familiar items: the Boomerang Flower, which allows you to throw a boomerang at your opponents, and a Piranha Plant, which has some decent range to attack any racer in front of you.
The game offers 12 person online multiplayer, but only four person local multiplayer, as the GamePad has been utilized but not to full effect. You can use TV mode to mirror the Gamepad and TV screen, but you won’t be able to go split screen with the TV and GamePad, and subsequently the Gamepad can’t be used for a fifth local player.
The upside? The game is spectacular, at 1080p, 60FPS. As the first HD Mario Kart, the game looks just stunning. Now, it does take a drop in this department when you come to three or four person multiplayer, dropping to 30FPS and with some graphical downsides, but none of these will affect gameplay.
And now, all that’s left is for you to check out the trailer itself, which you can see below. Mario Kart 8 is releasing May 30 for the Wii U.
