Your Top 50 Games: 2011 Discussion Thread

[Michael-5]

TWRoO said:

Michael-5 said:

Yea, but Mario Kart Wii doesn't feel like that major of an improvement over Mario Kart 64. Graphics, physics, and game mechanics are not that differen't and Mario Kart 64 felt more balanced. In Mario KArt 64, if your good, your fighting for first, but in Wii, if your just unlucky, your mid field because most items affect more then just 1 person.

Also even if quality wise MKWii and MK64 are the same, MK64 came out in the mid 90's. It offered all this 10 years before MKWii. MKWii might be a better game now, but it has a higher standard to compete with now. I expect MKWii to do a lot more then MK64, not just a little more, and for that reason I still find myself going back to MK64 to play, well a more balanced game.

MKWii starts with 16 tracks, like MK64, but 8 of those are retro remakes..So in reality MKWii has less then MK64, and when you get all 32 tracks, the amount of content doesn't feel that drastically different.

DD is good too, but I just don't like the introduction of drifting, and 2 player kart racing.

I never said the carts are faster in DD then MK64, I said they are probably as responsive, but because there are two karters, it feels slower.

The reason I feel MK64 has the best gameplay is because the formula hasn't been changed much since MK64. Mario Kart Wii and DS almost feel as if they run on the same engine as MK64.MKSNES and GBA feel different, every other Mario Kart feels like MK64, with minor touch ups. So to me MK64 had the best gameplay because at the time, what it offered was incredible, and Nintendo did such a good job with that old MK, that since then they have only been able to repeat themselves, and add some new items, and improve the AI. However I think the items in MKDD and Wii are too cheap sometimes (Bullet Bill?), and MK64 to me had the best balance.

Also battle maps on MK64 were awesome. Now they feel washed down for simplicity. I mean Skyscraper in MKWii (it's in Wii right?) has a wider track and boosts to jump over the gaps. That ruins the map, I loved it because it was hard.

I don't feel any difference in physics from MK64 to Wii, and good point about MKWii being slower then MKDD. That's one reason I don't like MKWii as much as MK64. It's too watered down. I loved the difficulty in the 64 and SNES iterations, ever since then they have made the game too easy.

I completly disagree with you about your views on MK64. I think compared to all the MK's it had the best track selection. MK Wii's tracks are pretty, but the tracks themselves don't have as many secret shortcuts (difficult ones), or just interesting sections (Bat Cave in Banshee Boardwalk). Also MK64 had the best battle, newer Mario Karts have dumbed down the map difficulty. Tracks are too wide, and most don't have holes in them, and there just aren't enough tight areas. Also MK64 has the best balance of weapons, since MK64 the only good new item introduced has been the tentacle ink bomb thing.

I'm going to have to give up because you aren't making sense to me.... MK64 just feels horrible to me, the controls (which in a game like Mario Kart pretty much encompass all of the games "physics") are the worst part of it, and feel absolutely nothing like the proper 3D Mario Karts. It's also the slowest and the least responsive of 64/DD/Wii and DS (and probably MK7 as well)
More balanced? Well perhaps the item selection... but MK64 racing was like a yo yo, you spend time catching up to the CPU 1st place and attack them, then they use random super speed to catch you up again. Even saying that though MK64 was easier to me than DD and Wii. Which is another thing similar to nostalgia goggles, people were younger and less experienced back then, and thus seem to forget what the old games are actually like. So many people seem to think SM64 and OoT are harder than SMG and LoZ:TP. The first time I played SM64 was only months before Galaxy, and they are very similar in difficulty levels.

Feel free to argue back again, but I think we are going to start repeating things from now on, so i'm not going to try convince you any more about the big difference in physics/gameplay MK64 is compared to the more modern Karts.

Really? Gameplay wise I feel no difference between Mario Kart 64, DS and Wii. The only difference is you can drift now, but I'm not a big fan of that.

I completly disagree about responsiveness, I think the Mario Kart engine has not improved at all since MK64.

The only things that have happened, is that level design has gotten poorer, battle maps have been dumbed down, and the items are far more random now and designed to give newcomers a better chance at the game. I'd rather play Mario Kart 64 because the track designs and battle map designs were less forgiving (get hit at the wrong time on Wario Stadium and you go back about 40 seconds in the lap when you fail the jump). Mario Kart Wii is a great game, just there is very little improvements to the game since Mario Kart 64, and the tracks are more forgiving in design.

The AI in M64 was bad, but as long as you didn't let them get too far ahead, they were fine. If you got a lead on them, it's not like they could magically catch up.

I dunno why you bring in difficulty because I play the game with friends, and the AI in all Mario Karts are pretty easy to beat. I agree with you about Zelda and Mario (although I haven't played much of both games for Wii), and I would even argue that Donkey Kong Wii got harder. Mario Kart is also about the same, and I feel very little has improved since Mario Kart 64.

RolStoppable said:

I have to agree with TWRoO, you really are blinded by nostalgia.

MK64 is the low point of the series which is why it was even up for debate whether it, Diddy Kong Racing or Crash Team Racing is the best funracer of the generation (note that I said funracer instead of kartracer, because this subgenre isn't restricted to karts; it's just Mario Kart's dominance that had led to misleading label of kartracing). In any other generation it's Mario Kart first and then everything else.

Mario Kart Wii actually only offers eight tracks at first, one new cup and one retro cup. Just like MKDS and MK7. All this means is that you have to spend about one and a half hours in singleplayer to unlock all cups. It really isn't a big deal and plenty of other unlockables sweeten the process.

The item balance in MK64 is outright bad, because the player in second place can get a golden mushroom. Combined with the ridiculous intended shortcuts (like Koopa Beach, a quarter of a lap; good thing they toned that nonsense down in MK7's retro version) and the even more ridiculous unintended shortcuts (like Wario Stadium, Rainbow Road), the game was simply broken. You had people trying to take the Wario Stadium shortcut for a whole minute until they finally made it and despite wasting so much time, they were far from finishing dead last. It was basically a better option to drive back and forth to do that shortcut instead of playing the track in the intended way.

I don't know how you can insist that Mario Kart 64 is that great when, as I said above, it wasn't even good enough to be the best funracer of its generation without a shred of doubt. MK64 was a disappointment after Super Mario Kart and other N64 racing games made it pretty obvious what MK64 could have been or rather should have been.

Blasphemy. Mario Kart 64 is the high of the series and since they made this game, Nintendo has been unable to improve the formula. Name 1 new item better then the Blue Shell, or 1 track better then Wario Stadium on N64. Even Rainbow Road and Bowsers Castle levels, best on the N64.

and yes, playing single player to unlock tracks (and characters) is a big deal. I never play the game alone, and doing so feels like a chore. Mario Kart is fun because it's something everyone can play, and it's funnest when you have 3 or 4 (or more) people over and everyone (good and bad) can play together.

Item balance in MK64 is the best, there isn't a pow block or a cheap bullet bill to knock you out at first, but the Blue Shell Bomb is a cool upgrade.

Graphics too man, Mario Kart Wii looks pretty crap to todays standard. Mario Kart 64 looked amazing, and was a huge jump in graphics technology over Super Mario Kart. Mario Kart Wii has slowdown (something MK64 never has) and looks no different from DD except for the single kart racer.

and Koopa Beach was an awesome map! It made you save mushroom boosts and that tunnel was a hard one to get into. I hate now new Mario Karts dumb down the old games, they make them too easy. I mean take the Skyscraper battle level in Mario Kart Wii. It's terrible, jumps gaps are too small, tracks are too wide, and overall it's just too damn easy.

What you say hurts me. Mario Kart 64 is by far the best fun racer of the gen, and by far the best Mario Kart. Since MK64 all Nintendo has been able to do is repeat the exact same formula (I'd even think they still use the same engine), and add crappy items, and dumb down the levels to make them wider and more accessible.

MKDS is really good too in the sense that it feels like MK64, but being on a handheld system totally kills it for me. I'd need 4 DS's to play 4 player and there is no big screen for others to watch too.