I have a bone to pick with you, Mario Kart Wii.
Something has gone very wrong during the making of this game, although I suspect the seed of evil originated in the design phase. I suppose I ought to say that this is all my opinion, but I'm not reviewing the game; there's just one little evident problem I want to point out.
We all know that racing games 'cheat'. There are lots of ways that the NPCs are programmed to keep up with you. Game developers have told us this to our faces several times, it's not a conspiracy. Well, actually it is I suppose, but anyway.
Mario Kart Wii takes this 'cheating' thing to a completely unnecessary level.
You can debate all you like on this 'cheating' business that the computer-controlled players do. I don't really care about that; I have my opinion, which is that theoretically every CPU should have stats equal to the player (At least equal to what the player can have, because car has different stats etc.)
They should all race around the track with you, and the higher the difficulty, the better the 'line' through the level should be, and the more efficient they should be with weapons. I'm sure this can be coded by the godly programmer people. I'm not really 100% sure about how the system 'should' be, but I definitely know how it shouldn't be:
What CPUs shouldn't do is seemingly defy the game's rules just to keep up with you, and to deliberately make it more difficult for you to win. This is what Mario Kart Wii is all about.
Playing Mario Kart Wii is not like playing a racing game; it's like being in a pantomime. When you jet off into the lead, overtake all the slow arse CPU players and pull away in 1st place, the game shifts into evil overlord mode. Immediately, you are bombarded by many things, often all at once:
Another player, using an incredibly overpowered 'artillery shell' powerup soars up behind you, smashing into your back and sending you flying up in the air, then back down again. You are stopped dead, and you have to accelerate from scratch. This cuts off about 5 seconds. They will always hit you. Always.
Another player, using the classic 'Star' invulnerability powerup zooms up behind you - now see above again.
A red shell, a homing missile type of thing comes spinning up behind you - now see above again.
Well, you get the idea. If you're in first, you will be hit by something. With the odd exception of a few levels, this 'beatdown' approach will always happen to make keeping 1st place very difficult.
But wait, surely that's just part of the game. The CPU players pick up powerups too, they can just barge in and hit you, that's not bad game design, quit whining!
And yes, that's absolutely right. Despite the fact that you can never, ever dodge these attacks, that's a fair enough point. A point which is blown away by one other item:
The blue shell.
The blue shell represents exactly what is wrong with Mario Kart Wii. When you launch the blue shell, it flies through the air, and homes in on the person in 1st place, whom it proceeds to blow up in a big explosion. They cannot dodge this attack - at all. It has a 100% hit chance.
The blue shell is a tool to stop the person in 1st place - simply because they are in 1st place. Mario Kart Wii acts as if 1st place is not a reward for skillful driving, but a dangerous hotspot reserved for the cocky bastard who dares overtake everyone else.
When the blue shell hits you, the CPU players, who are always, always a fraction of a second behind you, will overtake you. So furious is the computer's urge to stop your victory that sometimes you get hit again and again and again, going from 1st place to last place (12th) in one consecutive blast-session.
I've seen this frequently happen a moment before the finishing line on the final lap. The player will have done a really nice run, taken corners well and used items skillfully, only to have the computer barge in right at the end and hit him with a blue shell, knocking him from 1st place to 8th or 9th, robbing him of his victory. His skill, in the end, meant nothing whatsoever. He could not dodge that blue shell.
And that's why it's like a pantomime: it's not a race, it's an act. The computer controls who gets what items - you can only get the 'good' items if you are near last place, whereas if you are 1st or near it, you will only ever get the crappy ones like the really, really un-fun banana. If you're skilled, it removes the fun items. You can tell they meant it to balance the game, but it makes it incredibly frustrating.
There's literally no skill involved. The 'artillery shell' I mentioned earlier acts like a booster rocket, and fires your vehicle down the track, winding and smashing players out of the way until you're in 1st place, or thereabouts.
So you might say 'but Mario Kart Wii's not really about skill!', but what are you really saying? Imagine a 1st person shooter where if you were low on health, all your wild shots hit perfectly, whereas if you were full on health, you'd miss every time. That's absurd, it's the surest way to gain player hate.
And my goodness, players hate Mario Kart Wii. or at least the three or four I asked to play it.
It's all because of that pantomime. I find it wrong to dupe the player into thinking they're racing, but then using power-ups to negate any amount of skill.
Well I'll admit, a bit of skill does help - I mean if you know how to turn corners and apply acceleration, that will definitely increase your chances of victory.
It's difficult not to sound sour when writing this, even though I've just finished one of the Grand Prix events and got a silver medal which I was quite pleased with. The only way I managed to secure 1st place wins was by really, really pulling away from the group, and so when the blue shell, artillery, red shell, star, giant kart and that stupid bloody ink squid bastard thing* hit me, I was still able to keep the lead, and having all that hit me just wasn't very fun. Can't the other players just be, y'know... good drivers?
A red shell, a homing missile type of thing comes spinning up behind you - now see above again.
Well, you get the idea. If you're in first, you will be hit by something. With the odd exception of a few levels, this 'beatdown' approach will always happen to make keeping 1st place very difficult.
But wait, surely that's just part of the game. The CPU players pick up powerups too, they can just barge in and hit you, that's not bad game design, quit whining!
And yes, that's absolutely right. Despite the fact that you can never, ever dodge these attacks, that's a fair enough point. A point which is blown away by one other item:
The blue shell.
The blue shell represents exactly what is wrong with Mario Kart Wii. When you launch the blue shell, it flies through the air, and homes in on the person in 1st place, whom it proceeds to blow up in a big explosion. They cannot dodge this attack - at all. It has a 100% hit chance.
The blue shell is a tool to stop the person in 1st place - simply because they are in 1st place. Mario Kart Wii acts as if 1st place is not a reward for skillful driving, but a dangerous hotspot reserved for the cocky bastard who dares overtake everyone else.
When the blue shell hits you, the CPU players, who are always, always a fraction of a second behind you, will overtake you. So furious is the computer's urge to stop your victory that sometimes you get hit again and again and again, going from 1st place to last place (12th) in one consecutive blast-session.
I've seen this frequently happen a moment before the finishing line on the final lap. The player will have done a really nice run, taken corners well and used items skillfully, only to have the computer barge in right at the end and hit him with a blue shell, knocking him from 1st place to 8th or 9th, robbing him of his victory. His skill, in the end, meant nothing whatsoever. He could not dodge that blue shell.
And that's why it's like a pantomime: it's not a race, it's an act. The computer controls who gets what items - you can only get the 'good' items if you are near last place, whereas if you are 1st or near it, you will only ever get the crappy ones like the really, really un-fun banana. If you're skilled, it removes the fun items. You can tell they meant it to balance the game, but it makes it incredibly frustrating.
There's literally no skill involved. The 'artillery shell' I mentioned earlier acts like a booster rocket, and fires your vehicle down the track, winding and smashing players out of the way until you're in 1st place, or thereabouts.
So you might say 'but Mario Kart Wii's not really about skill!', but what are you really saying? Imagine a 1st person shooter where if you were low on health, all your wild shots hit perfectly, whereas if you were full on health, you'd miss every time. That's absurd, it's the surest way to gain player hate.
And my goodness, players hate Mario Kart Wii. or at least the three or four I asked to play it.
It's all because of that pantomime. I find it wrong to dupe the player into thinking they're racing, but then using power-ups to negate any amount of skill.
Well I'll admit, a bit of skill does help - I mean if you know how to turn corners and apply acceleration, that will definitely increase your chances of victory.
It's difficult not to sound sour when writing this, even though I've just finished one of the Grand Prix events and got a silver medal which I was quite pleased with. The only way I managed to secure 1st place wins was by really, really pulling away from the group, and so when the blue shell, artillery, red shell, star, giant kart and that stupid bloody ink squid bastard thing* hit me, I was still able to keep the lead, and having all that hit me just wasn't very fun. Can't the other players just be, y'know... good drivers?
*There is one more nemesis at work here, which is the stupid bloody ink squid bastard thing. All this thing does is zoom upto an enemy (It's seems like it's ALWAYS you though), and cover their screen with ink splotches - which are all the same decal, I might add - to obscure their view. I don't know why, but in the context of Mario Kart, this just seems like a cheap, stupid and - as the Americans say - lame item.
You can't dodge it - I think that's really the problem. I think a lot of frustration is caused by the player not being able to dodge these attacks. Like I said, it's not a matter of skill, you're just part of the show.
Although apart from this, I think Mario Kart Wii's very nice. Especially the bright and interesting graphics. It's just a shame that the pantomime effect makes it - for me at least - about as fun as keelhauling myself.
5 comments:
Hello! It's Emma!
I randomly stopped by your blog, and really enjoyed reading this post, as it's actually something relevant to me, and I'm totally agreeing with all you say!
I mean, I'm not very skilled, and found it ridiculously difficult to steer (Wheras on the DS, I'm damn good at this game)...
But yes, on the rare occasions I did get to first, the barrage of stuff is dreadful, and does tend to make it totally unfun, somehow.
My uncle who's really good at all computer games, and a complete and utter nerd was trying out the competitions you can do if you connect to the wii network or whatever it is... and yeah, it's just impossible to succeed, really!
The ink squid thing wasn't as bad on the DS either, because you could just keep driving looking at the other screen...
Anyway, how are you?
I hope you're ok :)
I miss our chats, oh well! Hopefully I might see you over the summer if you're home at all.
HUGS AND LOVE!
x
Oh, by the way, me and Martin are planning on investing in a wii... is it worth it? :D
Interesting little read there. But I might add that it's not always the case of the CPU cheating, I find that many times in multiplayer racing whoever's first will always have a pretty good chance of sticking to that position because say if your opponent (your mate who's playing right next to you) is in 2nd place and attempts to chase after you with red shells or green shells you on the other hand can counteract their oncoming attacks by holding an item behind you with the exception of the "fake question block".
In my mind this is pretty unfair for player2 in this example. Yes, player1 may get bombarded with blue shells at times but it's not quite that often it happens. Believe me, I and other players feel the same about this too and have been in many situations such as this!
Still, I agree about you on "cheating CPU racers".
I agree with everything you said, Dave. Except this: "I think Mario Kart Wii's very nice. Especially the bright and interesting graphics." No, no, no!...unless by interesting you mean "barely an improvement on the gamecube version", then that's fine.
Mario Kart Wii = Sludge
Bring back Mario Kart 64! =D
Mr. Cheung:
Thanks for your good comment! I appreciate what you have to say about multiplayer gaming in MarioKart Wii because I've yet to play it with others properly. I imagine that once you introduce a second human player, you might not feel the effects of the computer so much.
Sometime I shall have to give multiplayer a spin, but I just find it a shame that Nintendo have tainted their own game in such a way.
Mr. O'Brien:
Yes you're right, I just tacked that on the end. I need to stop doing that, because it's merely for the sake of staying neutral. Pointless! I've just spent 1043 paragraphs slagging off the game!
It's like the loremaster person in Final Fantasy X, who would give a long and detailed encyclopedic speech about a species or object in game, then hastily add 'Or not, I don't really know' on the end.
I'm with you on Mario Kart 64. I don't know if it's just nostalgia, but that's a great game!
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