Especially on the easy courses, it's so easy to get a good time, just keep trying until you get the wheelie angles right and cut the corners right.
Opinions?

It's just like SMK: It's easy to get good time, but try to get a very good time...

I actually prefer this style of TT if only that it more closely reflects real world driving than constantly doing SSMTs (or snaking for the n00bs). In this game there is more emphasis on establishing proper lines and tight cornering. With that being said, I still think MK64 still has the best and most nuanced control scheme of any MK. Every slide and movement has to be carefully calculated to maintain top speed. Hold a slide too long and you lose speed. Fail to maintain a straight line after releasing an MT and you lose speed.

In SMK the controls are good but are limited by the artifacts of ancient technology. MKSC is far too glitchy and in order to get a somewhat ordered ranking system you need to eliminate half of the strategies that can be found in the game. Meanwhile, MKDD and MKDS are so frantic that any and all elegance is lost (I guess a-tech in MKDD preserves some semblance of elegance but not much) because of the fact that sliding doesn't slow you down. As far as MKWii goes, the controls have the same sort of elegance that MK64 has but lacks the complexity of MK64 because of the limited MT techniques.

Just my opinions.

Sliding helps you maintain speed in comparison to normal turning when driving without the MT boost. However, in MK64 there is a difference in speed if you are sliding during an MT boost as opposed to gliding (driving straight) during an MT boost. Trying to maximize the glide to slide ratio is what gives MK64 controls that added feeling of elegance that lacks in MKDD and MKDS.

z0MG wrote on 05/05/08 at 12:09:38:

that helps a lot if you do it in the right spots

I agree about the edges of the track throwing you off. What doesn't make any sense is that you go up the hill instead of down the hill when you hit an edge. How do those physics make any sense?

If you're complaining about KC's electric things being hard to dodge, I would like to introduce you to a deep level of hell we like to call "Moo Moo Farm".

Jonesy wrote on 05/05/08 at 12:21:29:


Lol, I was gonna say that too. =/

Talking about randomness and you guys missed the Mushroom pads in MG? Maybe its just me, but it seems that you get a different height, speed, and distance in the air every time you bounce off one. Not to mention wheelies as you hit the ground from some jumps seems random at times.

Timothy wrote on 05/05/08 at 09:38:58:


lol, that was going to be my reply!

wheelies messing up doesn't make it more challenging, it just makes the control worse.
Ostro: damn it >_< the boxes are indeed random, it's impossible to avoid them every time, and trying to avoid them wastes a lot of time. to always avoid them you have to keep experimenting until you find out the exact spot where you can drive through without hitting the boxes for each lap given that the driving is exactly the same, which is just ass. and it doesn't work if the driving is slightly different or you don't drive at the exact same spot, so that theory is useless. I don't mind things that you actually can avoid, but these are way too random. to get a good time, you have to drive completely straight through these areas, so it's random if you hit them or not. what am I supposed to do? slide around them like a retard and waste a second when I can just drive straight?
Sorry, I've TT'ed for quite a while today, and it pisses me off. I'll never TT these two courses again.
Robin: Heh, I haven't TT'ed MK64 a lot. =P

wtf. You just explained exactly how they are not random. If they were random you would not be able to know where to go through on each lap. You are able to know. If time is lost it doesn't take long to compensate btw and again jumping out of a wheelie and start a new one wastes less than a second. Not to mention that i'm quite positive that a veteran karter who has played this map to death will also be able to recognize in an instant what path will work just from watching the first box without even thinking because it just comes natural. (there are set patterns). If there's any truly annoying moving obstacle on toad's factory it is those that arrives BEFORE the boxes which are blocking the fastest part of the road at certain times limiting players. Before the SC i could finish the course in at least a second faster if it wasn't because i had to wait for these to move later on anyway.
And as i also just said it doesn't mess up controls. You know what's strange here? First you complain that the game is too simple. Now that there's minor obstacles that are hard to recognize at first and requires more accuracy when starting a straight to begin with is bad? And again for these things the jumping out of wheelie is still near zero time loss that can quickly be regained through a draft.

All these complaints are all based on one quote from you: "you find out the exact spot where you can drive through without hitting the boxes for each lap given that the driving is exactly the same, which is just ass. and it doesn't work if the driving is slightly different or you don't drive at the exact same spot, so that theory is useless."

Driving in exact straight lines which is the entire idea and the skill base of this game is where you lack and then you conclude that the game first of all is skill-less and random.
The theory is not useless. Your abbility to get use out of the theory is just zero at the moment.

Note: I personally don't like this kart that much compared to 2 other wii games i play at the moment (medal of honor and smash bros brawl), but there's absolutely nothing wrong with the things you complain about.

100% agree with stelzig.

I hated the giant fireball in Bowser's Castle in MKDD. As your time got better and better, you got closer and closer to where you would have to lose time trying to compensate not getting hit by it. But it's as stelzig said - there's nothing random about it, and it's simply following a pattern. Don't like the boxes in TF in MKWii? Drive better/faster before the boxes so you have a better route.

As I was doing TF in my time trials, I immediately recognized how the boxes add strategic elements to the course. There will be times when the record holders will have lost a few tenths of a second because the optimal driving route was skewed by the boxes, only to be compensated by the next record holder who found the trick to drive the route to the boxes faster to avoid that time lost. It all adds to the competition, not subtracts it.