Mario Kart 8
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Game Information
Developers: Nintendo
Publishers: Nintendo
Release Date: May 29th, 2014
Platform: Wii U
Genre: Racing

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Synopsis
Mario Kart 8 (8 Mario Kto Eito?) is a kart racing game developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii U video game console. It is the eighth main installment in the Mario Kart franchise, and the eleventh overall. It was released worldwide in late May 2014, with 1.2 million copies sold in its first four days, making it the fastest selling Wii U game to date. On June 26, 2014, Nintendo reported sales of 2 million copies in the game's first month.

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Gameplay
Mario Kart 8, as much as everyone loves Mario, has came out with a new racing game. Mario Kart is one of there most successful series in there franchise. It follows the same function and features as Mario Kart 7. Unfortunately it is only for the Wii U, this has brought Wii U sales up a lot more than it was cause of how fun it is. This game brings new items to hit people with such as Boomerang Flower, Piranha Plant, the Super Horn (or ultra horn I don't know), and the CRAZY Eight. The Boomerang Flower works as it would with a real boomerang, you throw it and it comes back. The Piranha Plant comes up on your motorbike and eats people, every time it chomps on someone you get a boost and it completely stops the person you eat. The Super/Ultra Horn is really useful if your in first place, everyone hates seeing the blue shells coming to destroy you and your winnings, well the super horn can stop it from touching you. The crazy eight is rare to get unless your just that bad in this game, but if you get this you get eight items at once, scary right? The game also brings new characters Koopalings and Pink Gold Peach. There is a huge character list to choose from, my favorite to play as is Metal Mario. Each motorbike, wheels, and hang glider has different set of skills like acceleration, speed etc.. This game also brings new maps (of course) but they also bring back old maps from the previous Mario karts, which gives you a huge variety to choose from to beat your friends. I forgot to mention the anti-gravity feature. In this game they made an anti gravity thing where your wheels go sideways and your flying. So your pretty much going all over the place. This game just like the old ones has multiplayer which allows you to play with 12 random people and/or your friends. This game is addicting and fun to play if you are bored.

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Controls
The controls man are they simple? They follow the same controls as Mario Kart Wii. You can play on any of the following; Wii U GamePad, Wii Remote and Nunchuk, Wii U Pro Controller, Wii Classic Controller, and Wii Wheel, which ever one you prefer. Personally I prefer the game pad or the Wii Wheel. On the game pad its A to accelerate, LZ or L to throw your items from the item box at people, and the Left analog stick to honk your horn at them to get out of the way or intimidate them. The wii wheel is 2 to accelerate, B to throw your items, rotate your wheel in your hands to turn, and not to sure about the horn, possibly 1. Now on the game pad there is an option where you can make it so you turn your pad to steer your way around the course. Those are a sum up of the main controls. The other controls are useless to me and I never change anything with them cause its not needed. I would say this and the whole series would get a 10 on controls because of how simple it is.

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Graphics
The graphics have improved and should of considering this is a "Next-Gen Console." Everything about this game runs really smooth and looks really smooth too. Mario and all the other characters black outlining on them with nicely curved edges all around. The motorbikes all have there own little nice design on it to clarify which one is which, same goes for the wheels and hang gliders. The developers did a nice job with the maps. You can easily tell if your in a sandy, snowy, or foresty kind of place. The texture on them all is also really well put into as well. With interactive maps where you can fall into sinking sand, getting hit by Bowsers hand, or boulders flying down the hill. When you go under water you have a wavy kind of screen and looks really cool. Or when your hang gliding you have a motion blur for like 3-4 seconds which always looks nice. The items all look really different look really cool when there in action on the track. Its also pretty funny to see other people get hit by things then freak out then you see someone come up and star you down with an evil eye. You can really tell that the Developers and publishers put a lot of effort into this.

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Rating
Gameplay 9/10
Controls 10/10
Graphics 9/10
Overall 9/10