List Item: Play 100 of the greatest computer games
Progress: 79/100Title: Mario Kart 8
Developer: Nintendo EAD
Original Platform: Wii U
Year: 2014
In the update I made at the end of 2018 for Play That Game there were two new entries in the Top 100 that I have already played: Mario Kart 8 and Overwatch. Whilst I could have just crossed them off and added to the tally, these were both games that I love so much that I wanted to refresh my memory before officially crossing them off.
As of this update, Mario Kart 8 is the third of three Mario Kart entries within the Top 100 (Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart 64 being the other two) and, now this might be recency bias talking here, I think it’s the best of the three. Maybe even the best Mario Kart game ever, although I will always have a soft spot for all the hours I played on Mario Kart Wii in my teenage bedroom.
The big change in Mario Kart 8 is the introduction of anti-gravity racing, which opened up a whole new swathe of track possibilities. It just feels that with every iteration of this series Nintendo find ways to refine and improve on the systems. It makes you wonder what they’ll do for the eventual follow-up, but with Mario Kart 8‘s Switch edition only being released in mid-2017 I doubt we’ll be getting a follow-up for a very long time.
I’ll be getting around to writing up Overwatch in the near future, but that’s going to have to wait until after Christmas and even then it might be delayed if I get Super Smash Bros Ultimate as a present.