Nintendo Mario Kart 7 3D

On the 3DS, much better than its predecessor on the Wii. It is much more addictive and fun. It is great in both 2D and 3D as well, so it is great for young kids. It caters for everyone with easy levels, medium levels and hard levels. So it is great for inexperienced and experienced games young and old. it is great for people with patience and little patience and it is great for people who want to progress and those who want to have fun. I particularly like that you can collect coins and are given vehicle customisations for so many coins every hundred or so. That is a great idea and lets creativity through as well as encouraging you to be strategic. Genius. The on-line is good, not amazing... I love on-line so much but there are a few snags: -There is a glitched track and LOADS OF people choose it. -loads of people cheat at the glitched track which makes players choose whether to question morals or lose points. You have to cheat at that track to win. ^That is 'Wuhu Mountain Loop' and I now hate it! I also dislike that you have to wait for ages to play sometimes and then could be faced with brilliant players. It can be unfair if people choose the same track over and over again and nothing can be done about that. But all in all, it is great and an amazing game. I love on-line and the snags are only small! I would moan about the use of weapons which makes the game more about pot-luck than skill, but I thanked them when they helped me so it works both ways to be honest. I can only complain that you get the best weapons when you are last - the Golden Mushroom and the Bullet Bill, but that is so people don;t get disheartened, it is annoying when you have worked hard to get to 1st-3rd and then they all overtake you though! It only takes one weapon for you to drop down the rankings. Please bear in mind that I am short of patience though,. The on-line is great, but don;t play it if unjust placings annoy you. I would also recommend you wait until you have mastered the hard levels as the players on-line are amazing and I am sure you don't want to lose loads of points playing when you aren't ready. You start off at 1000 on-line but can lose 3 each time you get last place. When the game is so addictive it is easily done! One last thing.............Make sure you play with a steady internet. If the game cuts out on-line mid-race then you lose points as a penalty. I guess that was put in place to prevent cheating. E.g. turning off the console when you are losing so your record and points aren't damaged. Don't turn it off mid-game...You can lose up to 50points!!! I recommend it to everyone! You don't need on-line to make it fun, but it is great knowing you are playing against humans not the game! ;)

Okay, okay... I'm a a huge Mario Kart fan! Give me a break! But I'm here to discuss the features of this slick racing game with you. SINGLE PLAYER MODE Grand Prix - Race in various cups, consisting of four different courses. There are 8 cups in total which means (if you do the maths) there are 32 tracks in total to play. The good thing about Grand Prix is that it's basically a tournament, competing in an attempt to grasp that 1st place position with that grand total of 40 points (10 for each win) we all crave so much! Time Trials - Choose your best Kart, Wheel and Glider combination to perform a record-breaking 3-lap wonder which you can share with your friends via Streetpass and Online rivals via Spotpass. This is also a brilliant way to master those courses that you always seem to crumble on in Online races against those dreaded Japanese racers! Balloon Battle - This was first introduced on Mario Kart 64, I believe. The aim of balloon battle is to hit your opponents with as many items as possible. Each item which successfully hits your opponent will remove a balloon from their collection of three. Your only opponents available in single player are the CPU players. Coin Battle - Collect as many coins as possible and protect yourself from enemy attacks but also sneakily fire items at your opponents to steal their coins. Once they're hit, coins will jump out of their kart (given that they have some) LOCAL MULTIPLAYER Local multiplayer is available for 2-8 players simultaneously. From this mode you select 'Create a Group' and wait for your friends to join your group. Once your friends have arrived, you're ready to go! You should then choose your kart combination, then be given the option to play Grand Prix, Single Race, Balloon Battle or Coin Battle. The same rules apply in single race to grand prix, except the choice of the courses are entirely based on a roulette of the tracks each player has selected. The winner is decided once four races are complete. ONLINE MULTIPLAYER This mode utilizes the Nintendo Network. Options within this category are: Worldwide - Race against up to 7 others random racers online within your skill level. Your skill level is based on your 'VR' which I believe stands for 'Virtual Rating', which initially starts at 1,000. But, don't worry about decreasing in VR, when you win you gain approximately 10-20 VR and if you finish in 8th position you'll only lose a maximum of 5 VR. So fear not! Also, if you join a game which happens to be full, you will enter 'Spectator Mode' in which you can watch a participant of the race from various angles. Friends/Opponents - This feature is new to the handheld Mario Kart series, and is Semi-New to the series as a whole. This feature allows you to join a friend's current game as long as you have their friend code added to your 3DS. Also, here comes the best part... Let's say you race in a Worldwide game against a really fast opponent, and you're really determined to beat him/her, but you no longer have the time, so you have to come offline... Well, you can race that opponent again because they get saved to the 'Opponent' list, and when they're online, you can feel free to race them. Communities - This feature can be used for Online friend-only games, Clan matches or Friendly Community races, for example IGN, the popular game resource site, to access their community, just enter the follow code: '60-2240-3145-6926' you will probably find that there are always people playing in this group, so if you haven't joined a community already, this could be your first one! Exciting, huh? MARIO KART CHANNEL This feature mainly uses Streetpass and Spotpass to communicate with friends and people who you pass by. It allows you to create your own Mario Kart 7 profile, and share your favourite kart combination, your favourite courses in the form of a Grand Prix, your time trial records and you can even share a message with people you Streetpass! Also, using Spotpass, you will receive recommended communities and Ghosts for each course, used in time trial mode. Time for the pros and cons: PROS - Hours of fun (I've already played over 250 hours). - 8 Player Local Multiplayer and Online Multiplayer - Music provides a nostalgic feel as well and a fresh one - A stable online network - Addictive online multiplayer and ranking system, I currently have over 25,000 VR - Option to use your Mii as a playable character (has to be unlocked) - Several unlockables, including characters and kart parts give you many reasons to continue playing for a while - The addition of travelling through water and air - Brand new items, Fire Flower, Super Leaf and Lucky Seven. - The CPU players are intelligent enough to take shortcuts - Endless fun with friends CONS - There are a few glitches that let the game down a bit. I'll warn you before you play. 'Wuhu Mountain Loop' and 'Wuhu Island Loop' both have shortcut glitches in which the characters jump into the water at a certain part of the race and end up 30 seconds in front of everybody else. - No option to do single race on single player - No Waluigi as a playable character. I'd honestly recommend this game to anybody. Nintendo never fail to keep me entertained. They've done well!

I've had the 3DS since release and after much waiting, have finally received this game! Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land have brought the 3DS to life instead of those not so good 3rd party games. Mario Kart 7 is an AMAZING game, it's bright, vibrant and will have your mouth wide open when you race on your first course. The graphics aren't as good as the Wii's but the 3DS produces quality lighting and shading effects which make it look much better than on Mario Kart Wii. The glider is a nice way to cruise through the course and you'll feel like a fan boy remembering all the GameCube, Wii, N64 and SNES courses. The music on this game is also very appealing, has me turning my volume way up. With every game like this though, I believe that playing with other people (friends and online) is what pushes the game to it's peak. With a Mario game you never know when a blue shell will come and hit you right at the finish line or a lightning bolt striking you down from your glider at the worst possible moment and this adds to the excitement... As well as frustration when you know victory was in your almighty grasp! The only downside I'd say is that there's a lack of characters. I'd of loved to see the baby characters, Dry Bones, Toadette, Diddy Kong etc. But it makes up for it in a sense with new characters and your own Mii Character which looks far better than the Mii racer on Mario Kart Wii, so treat yourself, siblings or children for Christmas. Get gliding, diving and screaming; enjoy all the courses, new and old, but for those that fear Rainbow Road beware, there are two Rainbow Roads in this game - MWUHAHAHAHA.

Having clocked up many hours on both my DS and the Wii versions, I was very excited to play this installment in the Mario Kart Franchise. Using only the circle pad, you race through both classic and orginal race courses. The glider concept is fantastic and some of the courses are divided by sections rather than laps, which I think is a throughly enjoyable alternative and keeping the franchise fresh. Some of the courses it seems like you have less control (primarily 'Shy Guy Bazaar') but otherwise it's well designed and good fun. My only gripe is that the characters are almost to easy to unlock and doing the 50cc and 100cc is almost worthless except for collecting coins to unlock new features for your kart. Otherwise though, a great game. Nicely done Nintendo

I bought this game a few months ago, and I am still addicted. The first day I bought it I played virtually non stop all day, I just couldn't put it down. When I play it now, I still feel that. The courses, both new and old have been done perfectly, integrating some of the new features, such as the glider, so well. The new system of karts is fantastic, it gives you so much choice and variation within not only each car, but each character, as the same car will be affected by the new characters. The coin system to unlock new characters and kart parts makes this whole part of the game even more fun, because you never know when you might unlock a new part. The wifi is fantastic as usual with Mario Kart, and I think it has been diversified by the amount of variation in the vehicles now, in the Wii everyone went for one or tow cars, but in 7 there doesn't seem to be a perfect formula (yet) so everyone just chooses their own style. Although some favourite characters from the Wii are missing, the new characters have boosted the game, especially Shy Guy, who I have always loved, and was annoyed he wasn't in the Wii game. The only downside is that the main game is a bit on the easy side, it did not take me long to get stars on all the courses. This is compensated by the multi player diversity, as well as the time trials, which you can now race up to 7 ghost cars on. Overall, I would say that this is definitely up there with the best Mario Kart games and is a must have for any nintendo, mario, or just a first time gamer!

This was only my 3rd game on the 3ds so I didn't exactly know what to expect. I didn't think it was good at first because it wasn't at all like Mario kart on the ds and I didn't get the hang of gliding. I thought gliding was a bit weird because to go up you push the control pad down and to go down you push the control pad up. I thought the characters were brilliant how you started with eight and you unlocked nine (including your mii). The races were good and there were a few from Mario kart wii and a few from Mario kart ds and lots brand new! The items were OK because they added some but I didn't really like them. I thought the battles were good but a tiny bit easy and the locations you do them in are fun too. What I also thought was good that you can unlock different kart's, (there are no bikes) gliders and wheels. You can do time trials witch are really fun because in time trials you can also try out shortcuts without coming eighth in a race. You can also earn coins on the game by driving into them when doing normal driving but you can only earn ten coins in a race. The only problem with this game is that the 3d affects aren't very good compared to Super Mario 3d land and Pilot wing Resort. Overall: This game was very entertaining and I recommend this to anyone with a 3ds.

Grand children loved this

In the course of the past twenty or so years, video games series - some (very) good, some (very) bad - have come and gone. Others are still around but, arguably, have seen a steep decline in quality. Nintendo's Mario Kart series, however, has received virtually uninterrupted critical acclaim and commercial success since the first game was released on the Super Nintendo in 1992. This success is, in my view, justified and ultimately boils down to two essential components present in each Mario Kart instalment: (1) well curated graphics that show the console's graphical potential (e.g. this is what Mario Kart 8 is currently doing for the Wii U); (2) accessible, strategic and unpredictable gameplay. Does Mario Kart 7 for the Nintendo 3DS hold up well against its predecessors? The answer is a firm and resounding Yes. At present (2015), Mario Kart 7 remains one of the best looking games on the Nintendo 3DS. Running at 60 frames per second, the game is very smooth, colorful and simply beautiful to look at. You have 32 tracks, some new, some taken from previous iterations and remade for the 3DS, and they're all very well designed for such a fast and at times chaotic racing game. It's amazing to see what they did with the limited 3DS hardware, a mere handheld console; but, then again, this is not some random third party game. It's Mario Kart. It's clear that Nintendo considered this as a significant iteration within the Mario Kart series, indeed, a flagship title for the 3DS, and, consequently, the game couldn't be anything but a pleasure to experience visually. Now, the really important part: the gameplay. As most people know, Mario Kart games are arcade style racing games. Essentially, this means they are the opposite of realistic ''simulator'' games. What you can expect from Mario Kart 7 is as follows: (i) the game does not require previous knowledge or experience from previous iterations. Anyone, of any age, can pick up Mario Kart 7 and quickly learn the basic mechanics of the game. Indeed, the game provides for different levels of difficulty, so if you want to stay on the safe side you could, to begin with, just pick the ''50 cc'' mode (i.e. the easy mode); (ii) the aforesaid accessibility, however, gradually becomes illusory when you start playing on harder difficulties (''100 cc'', average; and ''150 cc'', difficult). Here, you become alerted to the strategic element which characterises every single race within Mario Kart 7. More specifically, within each race the player is given one or more items he or she will need to deploy either offensively against other racers or defensively as a shield from those racers' attacks. There are many considerations the player will need to take into account when using items, for example: their position in the race in respect of other racers, the environment, any potential obstacles, etc. You'll need to play the game for yourself to understand the subtleties of each individual race. In brief, as accessible as it may be, you will not fully understand and appreciate Mario Kart 7 if you don't think strategically. (iii) lastly, Mario Kart's legendary and (somewhat) infamous unpredictability. Simply put, there's no getting away from the fact that no matter how good you are at Mario Kart 7, you'll need some luck to win each race, collect all the coins, and earn those three stars for each Cup. This applies to everyone, newbies and veterans alike -- we're all in the same boat when playing this game. Players will soon become acquainted with ''accidents'' such as : lightning bolts, red shells and, of course, the much dreaded blue shell. In particular, the blue shell is an item that severely incapacitates the racer who is in first position. If you're in second or third place this may just be what you need to win the race. However, if you're in first place . . . well, think strategically! In conclusion, Mario Kart 7 has all the necessary ingredients that defined the success of previous instalments in the series. If you have a Nintendo 3DS then you cannot pass up this game.