Mario Kart Series

[sakicfan84]

I think I'm the only person I know that doesn't really care for the Mario Kart series. Playing with friends is fun, but the way the games punish the people leading the race by giving them terrible pick-ups really bothers me. The person in front is already fodder for most of the good items; I don't see the need for further punishment in the form of not allowing them any access to the good items that are about to pummel them.

Is the whole favor the loser thing something that you can turn off in the latest versions in the series? I'd like the games a whole lot more if it were.

[MrPopo]

You can't turn it off, but honestly, how many items are useful for the first player to stay in first? The fact that you can't get, say, triple red shell in first means that you don't have the scenario of:

2nd player shells 1st player
2nd player zooms past 1st player
2nd player now receives massive red shell bum rape from 1st player

About the only item that the first player can't get that would be useful to him immediately is the mushroom, and if he could it would be a case of the rich get richer. The father in front you get the harder it is to be hit by items, after all.

For me, the best control scheme on MKW is the Wiimote + Chuck, since it's very intuitive to lift the Wiimote to pop a wheelie. And you still get all the precision of an analog stick.

[Niode]

I hate how obscenely amplified the rubber band AI is on MKW. It really pisses me off that I can go an entire race without making a mistake, hitting the apexes, boosting and wheely-erm-ing everywhere and still lose right at the end by some cunt with a blue shell.

The most joy I got from MKW was beating all the time trial ghosts, twice on each circuit. That really improves your game. Knowing every single corner cut is quite handy at parties. It still annoys me about the blue shell, they should just let you customise the item rollout before a multiplayer match starts. It's like the Oddjob scenario from Goldeneye. Everyone loves playing as him but it's just infuriating when you're on the other end of the stick. Sadly there's no way to ban blue shells on MKW whereas you could just punch whoever chose Oddjob until they deselect him. You can't just get rid of a blue shell, you HAVE to fire it or live without items for the rest of the race.

My favourites in order of what I think is best.

Super Mario Kart
Mario Kart DS
Mario Kart SS
Mario Kart 64
Mario Kart Wii
Mario Kart DD

I hate DD the only good thing about the co-op was that you can cheat and get a friend to just waggle the fuck out of the second controller so that you could get boosts EVERYWHERE. Just boosting down straights was really fun.