So today I went down to the LA auto show and go to hang out there the entire day in which I spent 2/3 of my time playing mario kart 7!! There were 20 or so stations designated for the game and the IRL karts looked amazing!! I played every track and beat every cup on 150cc first try except for the special cup. I unlocked every character with the exception of metal mario and I found it weird that I was unlocking all of them in the 150cc class...

The Controls- The circle pad works really nicely and I liked everything about them. The only thing that was hard to adjust to were the tricks which are now executed with R instead of the d-pad. Up on the d-pad makes you go into first person POV lol. X and L can both be used to throw items and A and Y can both be used to accelerate. There are no stand-still mini turbos so acceleration is actually important unlike in Mario Kart Wii.

Snaking isn't very effective and is rather difficult. I noticed there are no drift or mini-turbo stats because I think all of the karts have the same drift.... It makes all of them bearable to use because of this but some vehicles are definitely better than others.

The frame, character, wheels, and glider all impact the vehicle stats but I think the wheels matter the most surprisingly and the glider stats barely change. I remember the large wheels helped the off-road and speed stats LOADS. I didn't have that many parts available on the 3DS I played on during my session though.

Items:
- Blue shell is still ridiculous but at least it doesn't throw you up 20 feet when it strikes you. It does travel on the ground the entire time then shoots up right before hitting people
- The Fire flower isn't as over powered as people think. You barely slow down when hit by it and if you spam it too much then the fire balls you first fired seem to just vanish...  I got one in 2nd place at the highest position
- The tanooki leaf is a very common item to get in first place. It has really short range and is time based but is really good if you are able to strike someone with it. I wasn't able to dodge a blue shell with it but you can block greens and reds.
- The shock lasts longer on its initial zapping, I don't remember ever getting shocked in the air while gliding which is depressing since I wanted to see what was supposed to happen. Hopefully my video footage shows it since my brain can't remember it. >_<
- The Lucky 7 is RARE. I got it 3 times total LOL! One of the times, I was in 4th place and I just annihilated everyone then used a star in first!! But another time.... some dude threw a shell at me which hit the bomb circling around me causing me to blow up!!
- Aside from the DK Pass box, I did get a shroom and a red shell in first both once which was really surprising

Time Trials:
I briefly checked it out and it's pretty much the same stuff. Coins really won't affect TT's whatsoever since they BARELY give you any boost and are used mainly to unlock vehicle parts (I unlocked the flower umbrella by getting like 1500 coins or something during my session). I finished a tt race and clicked replay to see what perspective it would give me. It gives you either that side view like MKDS did or a first person view like being in the kart. I couldn't find a way to get the standard view that everyone likes to show on the replay.

I also checked out the MK7 channel which is all based on friends and communites. I did not see any signs of Nintendo charts like mkwii had which is good and bad I suppose.

Tracks:
Toads Circuit: I like it better than all the previous first tracks of other mk games so it's a good first track >=D
Daisy Hills: very long for a second track, I only played it once so I don't remember it too well.
Cheep Cheep Lagoon: Eww, Not really a fan of it since its practically all under water and constant tricks off these little bumps and sometimes you float a bunch all weirdly. The clam things also are really annoying. Then the shortcut at the end can be blocked by items very easily forcing you to take the slower route or hit them to get rid of them.
Shy Guy Bazaar: Best track of the cup, pretty fun to race on and lots of different routes to take. I didn't find any shortcuts besides off-road cuts surprisingly

Wuhu Loop: I found it to be really fun and it says "Section 1/3" on the bottom screen instead of laps. The track is really creative and nothing like the Maka Wuhu one in the star cup. There are some really large glider sections as well.
Mario Circuit: Probably best MC yet, looks nice in 3d with all the flowers petals dropping down. On the glider ramp after the castle, you can cut off that entire turn if you do it correctly and you can use the pipe to get more air if you aren't gonna make it.
Music Park: the scenery around it looks beautiful and some of the bumps (representing music keys) cause you to have to take turns wide. If I remember correctly, the piranha's do attack you even though the flower cup preview didn't show it
Rock rock mountain: you guys have seen plently of this track LOL, well, on the second to last jump before the uphill section you can skip the entire last turn if you have a shroom but you have to navigate through some trees XD Also, the beginning gliding section is really easy to skip the first turn on. theres also lots of wooden ramps added throughout it.

Piranha plant slide: just as amazing as it looks in the previews. also the piranhas are DEADLY omg.... and you can use the glider to skip the last turns if you have a shroom. There are also fake goomba's at the end that are really just made of like wood or something hehe
Wario's Shipyard: This one is in my top 3 favorites, it just looks beautiful and is loads of fun to race on. I am like practically speechless on this one so just watch the video! xD
Neo Bowser City: BEST MUSIC EVERRR, the track is really straight forward with no enemies and only mud puddles to slow you down. It will probably be a really good frontrunning track. Also, I'm pretty sure you can cut off this one gap off the track because I came close to doing so. It would cut off around 3 seconds xD
Maka Wuhu: divided into 3 sections like wuhu loop, I liked it much more than I originally thought I would. It has some cool shortcuts but lacks enemies for it being last star cup track. The boulder section is the only challenging part.

DK Jungle: seriously nintendo? very uncreative track name.... anyways, you've already seen plenty of this track. Aside from the demo, a few areas to trick and the statues blow wind at you in the glider section which is actually pretty cool
Rosalina's ice world: the beginning is really fun since you can do all these drift slides everywhere, then you get to the water section where you can drive above it lap1. On lap 2 and 3, one of the ice blocks falls and you are forced to drive underwater. A lot of tracks have things like these to alter the courses for future laps but I'll probably forget some
Bowser Castle: BEST track in the game from my first impressions. It is super creative, chaotic, challenging, has great shortcuts, underwater and gliding sections.. it's amazing. There's this one part where you go through this spinning barrel like structure that reminded me a bit of the spinning horizontal bar in the ds one.
Rainbow Road: It's 3 sections and just 1 lap... um just wait for the video, I don't even know where to start! HAHA

I love you and I hate you at the same time, lol. I didn't expect you to skim the entire game, and I terribly wish I could have come (oh well, only 2 more weeks)

So my feeling about absence of online charts seems to be right after all. May the PP thrive !
Sucks for the replay thing though. At least first person view should be better than the MKDS view.

Really curious about the two RR's, especially the SNES one now that you mentioned wavy parts, I mean WTF

Anyway, thank you very much
Will you upload the 4 first cups as well ?

fuck, MTs got so nerfed…

WS looks super complex

Troy wrote on 11/20/11 at 21:28:11:

btw that is lol

also, I’m guessing in TTs you get 3 shrooms no matter the parts you choose?

edit: actually how does that 7 thing work? how do you choose which item to use?

G-danzee wrote on 11/21/11 at 07:58:13:

that sounds incredibly annoying and hard to control…

Now I'm super excited for Special Cup, aside from DK Jungle. xd

Husky wrote on 11/21/11 at 15:05:33:

Huh ? You fastfall with the stick, not the d-pad

Good questions about flaps though. Imagine having to do the 2 first sections to do a fast section 3

Ebil wrote on 11/21/11 at 14:00:55:


How can you have "shadow" in your name and not be excited about DK Jungle?

ALAKTORN wrote on 11/21/11 at 04:55:51:


Yeah, TT's give you 3 shrooms no matter what.

the Lucky 7 just uses whatever item is in front of you. Here's a clip of how the 7 can backfire on you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smzPV4k_J-8

Thanks for the videos, you did a great deed allowing everyone to preview this shit fully before purchasing.

Are tricks automatic when you jump or do you just do them when you actually in the air? ... Or is jumping moved to a different button since you say you trick with R?

Don't understand how you can say the leaf has short range when everything i've seen tells me otherwise - it seems to be able to hit people in front of you and generally all around you... It's still good to hear though, and I hope you're right.

Didn't read everything so i'm sorry if some of this has already been adressed

ALAKTORN wrote on 11/22/11 at 02:29:55:

Actually it's not! Just wait for other people to pass you and use it.

I'm sorry but what's the slide pad?