Do you ever just have your expectations set to a low bar?
For me, “Mario Kart Tour” made the low bar easy. “Tour” is the newest game in the Mario Kart franchise for Nintendo, which released on mobile devices this past September.
When you first boot up the game, you’re met with a short tutorial, where you already start to see the problems.
You are told that your kart will always be moving forward at a continuous speed, dependent on if you are larger or smaller.
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When you begin, you get a random character as a starter. I got Toad, one of the smaller characters. That worked out beautifully and I know he will be my new default character going forward.
So I begin, and now I have to make turns by swiping my finger left and right on the screen.
Wait, what?
This is just another example showing why “Tour” doesn’t work. In every other game in the series, you can drift or turn at any time. But on “Tour,” you must choose one or the other.
If you choose the turning option, you easily can make the turns. But as a result, you can’t get the extra speed boost after you complete a drift.
With most of the race courses brought over from the main Mario Kart games, they look impressive — much better than what I was expecting.
The game showcases great colors, smooth speeds and vibrant environments. This might be the only thing I took away as a positive.
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But the element that makes me detest this game the most: micro-transactions.
Micro-transactions are when games allow you to buy in-game currency, objects or characters for a small fee, like paying $2 for three rubies.
These have been a constant annoyance for mobile games, but have started to seep their way into console games as well. It doesn’t bug me as much if micro-transactions are there, as long as they doesn’t influence the core gameplay.
But it does bother me when the game’s progression is slowed to a crawl, giving you two choices for unlocking characters and their karts: play the game for hours and hope you get the character you want in a lottery or pay out money to buy the character in seconds.
It’s a greedy practice and one I thought I wouldn’t see Nintendo acquire.
With the micro-transactions, bad gameplay and simply lack of fun, “Tour” gets a 1.5/5, only being held up by the impressive visuals.
Zack Kellogg can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @kellogg_zack.