Mario Kart Tour: how it has changed
Before going into the analysis of this modality, and before talking about the most interesting updates of the last few months, we would like to dwell on some - annoying - aspects that have not changed. First of all, the tendency to repeatedly offer paid content, absolutely unnecessary or binding, but still disturbing. The player is continually rewarded by new items (stars, rubies, bonuses, etc ...): it is evident that at the base there is the will to encourage the acquisition of the same, and the fastest way to do it is, of course, that to put his hand in his wallet. An unpleasant attitude in general, even more if put into practice by a company like Nintendo which, it should be remembered, always has children as its main target. Secondly, the structure that focuses more on quantity than on quality: there are many characters, karts and objects, but there are few differences between them, they are gradually benefited alternately without this causing actual in-game variations. Basically, those with more karts to choose from have a better chance of winning a race.
The last detail that has remained unchanged, perhaps the most unpleasant, is the fraudulent way in which, during the tour, the opponents of the CPU are passed as real players. We too, in the review phase, thought they were at least ghost derived from times really reached: instead no, it is simply CPU disguised as human opponents. A petty choice, if possible exacerbated by the presence of a "real" online mode (absent at the beginning).
This game probably would not have been born under the management Iwata, who considered the mobile support as a kind of advertising for console titles. If the recent rumors prove to be true, if Nintendo will mobile development , the influence of Mario Kart Tour could be considered decisive: this is the game that most of all you fold in the dynamics of monetization that are typical of this market, and at the same time - not coincidentally - the most "affecting" the prestige of the saga that is. In this context, it was difficult to find a compromise between profit, quality and respect for the consumer.
landscape Mode
The most recent update, as we anticipated, lets you use the Mario Kart Tour, taking horizontally your mobile device. A change request with a loud voice, from the outset and that, as it was predictable, only involves the race. This means that all the phases prior to, from the selection screen to the settings, they remain vertical as before. The process to activate this mode is quite intuitive: at the beginning of the stroke, just before the start, just rotate horizontally on the screen.by Enabling this setting, the glance is definitely the best . More airy, more credible, more suited to a racing game like Mario Kart. We are not talking only of the visual pleasure, but also ability to read the race in this way are more clear, the curves and the trajectories of the opponents. So you see more of the track, with the smartphone in the vertical heaven: even to the intuition, it is not difficult to understand why it is preferable to the new option. If you want you can change from one to another version simply by turning the screen; on the contrary, to prevent this from happening accidentally (nearly impossible, in our opinion) you can select from the settings which variant to use, and by doing so, even if you move the device, it will not change the framing.
Despite on a visual level this is - of course - the ideal solution, playing you realize why Nintendo had preferred to adopt, and impose, and the other version. First, cradle the device, in this way, it is more complicated : in some cases it will not be a problem, but especially with smartphones very large, you may become one. At the same time, although ideally you ought to do everything with one hand, it is often preferable to use the thumb of the other (the one with which to carry your smartphone) to enable fast power-up: with the device in landscape, everything becomes even more difficult. In short, the new mode is more enjoyable and allows a better reading of the race, the old one is more immediate and softens the defects of the control system.
online Multiplayer
If the horizontal mode is the most recent update, the most important of these months is surely the one that has introduced a real online mode . As we said at the beginning, the Tour of this game is a version of the contrary competition in the network. Don't exaggerate with terms: the title emulates the search of users online, simulates logos and nicknames, and there is no way to guess - if not the extreme fluidity - that you are not playing with a real opponent or, at the very least decent, against a "ghost".The online mode, unlike the other, provides immediately a great divide between those who intend to spend and who is not: only for the first, with the pass of gold , and are accessible competitions to 150 and 200cc . For all others, the displacement is of 100. That is very slow, probably slower than Mario Kart for a home console; also, unlike the latter, the mobile control system is not exceptional, and flattens out greatly the disparity in the steering wheel between a user and the other. Mario Kart Tour already tends by itself to equalize the skills of the individual; to 100cc, or going slowly, it is almost impossible to take considerable distances from each other only by driving. That was not enough, the dosage of tools and weapons is totally chaotic: you can get a rocket, even by seconds. The control that one has on the race, in essence, is really a minimum.
There are two other factors to the disadvantage of this mode. The lag , which often surprises (usually negative) once you have crossed the finish line and, as often happens in Mario Kart Tour, to be encouraged is not so much the greatest player, as that has more characters, more karts, more tools. Among them - unlike the main series - on track are very similar, they give different bonuses each race: most of them only affects the score, but some (for example) alter the number of weapons allowed by each box.
Despite Mario Kart Tour has been expanded a lot since the time of our review, its quality, and above all his defects, have remained more or less unchanged. It is a forced compromise between a series and a market at the moment are too far away.
