Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit (16th October)

[Josh64]

These look really cool and is the kinda product I'd have loved as a kid. Just like Labo this looks really inventive and is a nice departure from games but not something I'd personally want (or have room for!)

I wonder if they'll ever release a mobile companion app to use with it instead of just using the switch to broaden its toy appeal/make multiplayer easier 

Edited September 4, 2020 by Josh64

[Dcubed]

Latest Nintendo Investor’s Q&A reveals that NERD worked on Mario Kart Live alongside Velan Studios (The Q&A also confirms that the studio was founded by the lead staff from Skylanders Wii U).

 

NERD are very quickly becoming Nintendo’s MVP.  It’s remarkable how productive such a small team can be! Proud of them!  

[Helmsly]

Nice video showing off how this thing is set up and some of the features:

 

[Londragon]

If I had a younger son, and the space for this, this'd be a day one purchase.  However, I will look admiringly at this 100 pound plastic racer.

[V. Amoleo]

This looks so cool.  I can't wait to get it.

That track builder though! Nakes me want Mario Kart Maker so that people can enjoy it without needing the space and the gubbins.

[Will]

Looking fun, not sure I’d make much use of it but hope it’s still around when my son is a little older - think we’d have a blast with it.

[MindFreak]

Yeah, thinking about getting this for my son (3 years old) and me. He loves RC cars and also likes to play MK8Dx (auto-acceleration and steering assist with motion controls, and he can actually play it!). He's already talking about the Mario driving on the floor after he's seen the videos about this. So I think we need it.

[BowserBasher]

Ok after seeing that I want this but just don’t have the room to set up tracks. May have to pick it up just to have it though. I’d love to recreate F1 tracks and race them. 

[RedShell]

So good! And thanks for my new avatar Mario Kart Live.  

But as awesome as this looks I simply don’t have the space for it so will have to pass, looking forward to seeing more gameplay from it online once it’s out though. I bet there are going to be some really cool real world MK tracks built for this, plus people playing it in unusual places.  The Switch capture button will probably be disabled for this game, but hopefully there will still be those with external capture setups recording/uploading plenty of footage.

[Dcubed]

Looks really cool! I love the idea of having the real life RC Kart's actual driving actually react to what happens in the game! So bloody clever!  

I really don't have the space for this though lol.

Edited October 3, 2020 by Dcubed

[MindFreak]

Reviews are up, about 7 on average. I found this one really informative:

 

I mostly want this for my 3 year old, he would simply love it. 

[RedShell]

Hahaha!  Oh man, the cat in that video.  

[Will]

Looks pretty awesome and seems to work as well as you’d hope it would. Hope that it does well and they keep adding characters and maybe some other additional stuff you can place around to interact with. 

[V. Amoleo]

Against my best judgement I took a chance on Base and they have let me down.  They let me know today at 3:30pm, so I can't even find somewhere to get it delivered for tomorrow now.

[V. Amoleo]

So I managed to get one from Argos.  It’s so much fun to play but it will very much depend on the space you’ve got.  So many gameplay elements straight from Mario Kart.  One thing to watch for is drifting though.  Obviously it’s different because it’s a physical kart so you have to ‘forget’ how you drift in Mario Kart to get the hang of it.  Also there’s no holding items behind you, I wonder if that’s because in two player there’d be no visible clue that the person was defending?

My two cats love chasing Mario as he drives around.

[stuwii]

Amazon have let he down with this 

[Glen-i]

4 hours ago, V. Amoleo said:

My two cats love chasing Mario as he drives around.

You sure you didn't buy a copy of Mario 3D World by accident?

Edited October 16, 2020 by Glen-i

[V. Amoleo]

So I've been playing this all weekend and I can still say I'm enjoying it.  Made a track across three rooms and as long as I was in the middle room I had no connection problems.  This is with solid interior walls, so if you've got stud walls you could probably get even more distance out of it.

The battery life is great!  I've not played with an RC car for a while but I don't remember them ever lasting this long.

It travelled over hard floors, carpets, a thin rug and carpet door cover strips with ease, even on 50cc.

Your mileage may vary but I ended up smashing into the gates more than the cats did, so having pets is not a dead stop to getting this.  I did have to stop playing before I wanted to though as the cats were getting way too hyped up from chasing it.

I really like how the different cups change the environment that you race in.  The gates gain a new look and different obstacles, the screen gets an overlay effect (e.g. underwater) and the handling changes.  I don't know why but I wasn't even expecting to see cups like in a standard Mario Kart game.

There are a few things I'd like changed (or more like three things I'd like polished and one I'd like changed):

1. I accidentally made a track with a hairpin corner so tight I had to stop and reverse to get around it.  It'd be nice to have a warning after you've done this to confirm you actually want to do that.
2. It'd be nice to use the gates to make a point to point race.  I'm guessing at the moment it's not possible because the track could end up being very short but the option to do it would be nice.
3. You can't take screenshots or video while playing the game.  I'm guessing this is a Nintendo being over cautious thing because of the camera but let it be a toggle option in the settings or something.  This is why I've not included any footage in this post.
4. The virtual racers are completely unaffected by real world obstacles.  I'm not sure if this is even changeable with the hardware inside the kart, but it leads to frustration so I've got to mention it.  When I said that I made a corner too tight, it wasn't too tight for the virtual racers who just glided through my sofa and chair.  It also means that sometimes you'll run into things because you're following close behind a virtual racer that you fail to see they've passed through a real object.

[MindFreak]

50 minutes ago, V. Amoleo said:

You can't take screenshots or video while playing the game.  I'm guessing this is a Nintendo being over cautious thing because of the camera but let it be a toggle option in the settings or something.  This is why I've not included any footage in this post.

Yeah, not gonna happen. Imagine the outrage if a nude child was seen on a screenshot and pasted online through this...

[Glen-i]

22 hours ago, MindFreak said:

Yeah, not gonna happen. Imagine the outrage if a nude child was seen on a screenshot and pasted online through this...

Yep, pour a glass out for poor Nikki, who lost her Swapnote job because the internet is awful and that's why we can't have nice things.

[Ashley]

 

[BowserBasher]

£54.81. Very tempting at that price. If it’s still there on payday I may take the plunge just to have one in my collection 

[bob]

My friend got one of these through a police auction site, and I had a play with it at the weekend. It's pretty fun! Got bored of the track we set up after about 30 seconds though, and instead used it to chase his kids around the house.

 

[Julius]

The base Home Circuit set is down to £55.15 on Amazon UK for anyone still interested in picking one up 

Edited June 7, 2021 by Julius

[Hero-of-Time]