Another Nintendo console, another Mario Kart. Ever since the SNES this has been one of the most anticipated series every time Nintendo release a new console. Why is this? Perhaps because there is only one game in the series for each console, perhaps because the quality of the series is kept very high, perhaps because it’s one of the best multiplayer titles Nintendo make. But mostly because it is fun. Like the Mario games it’s inspired by, Mario Kart is as light-hearted as gaming can get and reminds us that games are all about fun. Jesse Schell in “The Art of Game Design” proposed a definition of fun as “pleasure with surprises.” By that definition Mario Kart 7, like all the Mario Kart games before it, is above all else, fun.

There is no premise or story to speak of. Choose a character from the classic Mario franchises, choose a kart type, choose a cup, choose a difficulty and race! Racing involves pressing A to go forward, steering with the circle pad and hopping into slides with the shoulder buttons. If you slide for long enough your dust trail starts burning blue and then red, and when you release the shoulder button you get a small boost of speed. You can also collect items in question blocks which you can throw or use with X. B brakes, but you won’t ever need that. It’s pure arcade racing and it’s silky smooth and responsive like the DS game (although you can’t snake, thank goodness). The format hasn’t changed: each cup is four races and you must end up on the top of the leaderboard after all races to claim the gold cup. The cups are ranked in increasing complexity, and you have to finish in the top three of a cup to unlock the next one. Fortunately the 50cc, 100cc and 150cc difficulties are unlocked from the start so long-time players don’t have to go through the slower speeds to get to where the challenge begins.

There are a few tweaks in this Mario Kart, as always. This time there are gliders – certain jumps cause your car to go into glide mode. In this mode you can control your glider by using the circle pad to steer or go up and down. Sometimes this allows you to take shortcuts, although if you get these slightly wrong you will probably lose a lot of time. Gliders are used quite sparingly, but they’re a fun addition. There are also some new items: the Fire Flower allows you to throw a number of fireballs at those ahead of you; the Super Leaf turns your car into a tanooki car, so you can spin and hit cars near you with your tail. Lucky 7 is the craziest new item – it gives you seven items spinning around your car. Pressing X uses or throws the item that is in front of you at the time, so it takes some skill to use properly. You can also choose your kart type, wheel type and glider type before racing, a great change from the DS game where your character determined your kart options. Karts are now rated for off-road ability separately from weight, which gives you some different strategic options, because if you like taking crazy shortcuts you might want a kart with high off-road ability. Mario Kart 7 feels well balanced – no character has an advantage and I feel that people will simply find karts that match their style rather than ones that are definitely better.

Mario Kart 7 follows the pattern set by the Mario Kart DS and Wii games – 16 new tracks and 16 classic tracks. This time the classic tracks include a few Wii tracks, so the classic tracks feel more like modern tracks, which is a little unfortunate in some ways. I enjoy the variety of experience offered by the SNES and GBA tracks, but there are only three of those super-tight flat-type tracks here. Nevertheless it’s still a great way of offering a lot of content, and significant effort has been put into making the classic tracks look and feel great as well as suit the glider. Among the new tracks are some long tracks that are made up of three different sections instead of three identical laps. This is a great idea, and the tracks that use it are quite different in design to standard Mario Kart tracks. All the new tracks in this game are top quality, a joy to drive through and full of those surprises that turn pleasure into fun.

The singleplayer content in Mario Kart 7 is lacking in quantity – a few hours of unlocking characters and different kart options and you’re done, unless you want to get the three star rating in each cup, a difficult, time-consuming task. There is no challenge component as in Mario Kart DS that would increase the singleplayer longevity. There is a coin battle and Bob-omb blast mode, but these are not really singleplayer oriented in the first place. There is, however, an eight player local multiplayer component, which I am sure will be crazy fun (I haven’t managed to round up eight 3DS owners, yet.) More accessible to most of us is online, which has become so much of the Mario Kart experience over the last few iterations and has led to an explosion in sales for the series. As Nintendo’s flagship online game it’s an important barometer of where they’re going with online play.

Mario Kart 7 has solid online features; you can join in worldwide games, or join games with friends, play races or bob-omb blast games. You can receive spotpass or streetpass ghost challenges. In addition there are communities you can join which act as a friend network for Mario Kario 7 only. Some communities are open but for others you will need the code. Each community can set rules (such as bananas only) and you can belong to a number of them. This is a fantastic way of organising the online community – for example, you could join a South Africa community and whenever you go online you can search for games in that community. It’s a method I can foresee other games using as it means I can join a group of people to play a particular game without becoming friends in my console itself.

Mario Kart 7 is a brilliant kart racer. Nintendo have been untouchable in the genre for a very long time, and once again have made a game that is near impossible to better on the same platform. We could wish for still more content, but 32 tracks really is sufficient, all in glorious 3D and almost Wii-quality graphics in your hands. Don’t play for too long because the 3DS will start hurting, but it’s hard to put down. Make sure you play with the 3DS plugged in because this game will chew its battery up before you can throw three bananas. One thing you can bet on: there will almost certainly be no better kart racer on handhelds for at least five years. If that doesn’t convince you to get Mario Kart 7, nothing will.

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