Mario Kart Tour - out now for mobile, if you really must

[Rudderless]

This is pretty wretched. I've played a good few iOS racers and I tend to prefer tilt to touch controls, but either way I've never felt I was wrestling quite so much with the steering before (I'm still winning every race, because that's how they suck you in). Admittedly, I haven't tried the 'simple' option yet, but I doubt that's going to change my mind about it. All the pipe stuff is just embarrassing, and locking 200cc and the best cosmetics behind a subscription is astoundingly cynical. 

[TehStu]

I was totally with the Pokémon Quest or Mario approach, making it free and providing extra stuff if wanted. Or Tetris 99. But I'm not on with this full on F2P cynical bullshit, and will have no part in it, as I've said before. 

 

It's kinda sad there's a market for this, but whatever. As long as it bankrolls normal Switch stuff. 

 

I wonder at what point we'll have to deal with freemium mechanics and the whole constant dopamine hit from our various phone apps, as a society. 

[papalazarou]

does this have controller support on ios or is it just touch control?

[Paulando]

Never mind the shameless IAPs, server maintenance the morning it bloody came out, and the server problems trying to login, the game seems bloody awful from the quick go I had before. Is it right that you drift by default? So if you want to straighten up you can only drift some more to do it.

 

I had a go of Sonic Racing on Apple Arcade the other day, which employs a similar control mechanism, but I was surprised by how well it worked. Probably the best phone racer control mechanism I’ve ever used, actually. But this is dreadful.

[DarhkFox]

I spent 20 minutes playing , I didnt think it was too bad and I thought I was racing real people ? Hows that work then? Ghosts ? 

 

edit: when i say ghosts, i mean like time trial ghosts 

[Alex W.]

I can’t get over the contrast between Mario Kart 8 DX - everything unlocked, everything included - and a year of the subscription to this game.
 

I would honestly pay £5 a month for an all-inclusive Mario Kart subscription which seems like a far less cynical monetisation model.

[R0b]

If I'm lucky this'll quietly come to the Switch eshop as one of those 'turn your Switch on its side to play' titles in a few years. 

[DC Lemon]

Once you get past the greed on display, at least this moves the series in the right direction in terms of finally offering a meatier single player campaign with a superior format and challenges thrown in. The best effort in that department since MKDS. The only effort, to be honest.

[DarhkFox]

The annoying thing is some of these tracks are pretty fun but i'd rather play them in MK8 DX.

[alex3d]

30 minutes ago, TehStu said:

It's kinda sad there's a market for this, but whatever. As long as it bankrolls normal Switch stuff. 

 

Nintendo need to watch out though. Could well be that people playing this trash will be put off buying Nintendo home consoles.

[Strafe]

2 hours ago, Rudderless said:

You do know you’re not racing against other people, right?

 

I did wonder. Everyone has names over their heads that are real world names (or at least might be)

[Rudderless]

45 minutes ago, Strafe said:

 

I did wonder. Everyone has names over their heads that are real world names (or at least might be)

 

I've seen it done before - they make out you're racing against real-world opponents, so it feels better when you win. And then you win again and you win again and you're feeling good. By then they've got their claws into you, and then you start losing - mainly because you need a better kart or whatever - and so you either grind away for upgrades or pay up to get back to winning ways. 

[joffocakes]

The mobile version of PUBG did it; Twitter was full of oblivious braggin'.

[alex3d]

Reception on reddit is overwhelmingly negative (e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/d90akh/mario_kart_tour_unveils_499month_subscription/).

 

[joffocakes]

It's a shame it's a cluster of wild currencies and gacha grind with handling nowhere near as responsive as the main series because I quite enjoy the points-over-placement focus.

 

Landing a sequence of hops and hits while adjusting drift to collect coins is really satisfying. Reminds me of PGR2's excellent cone challenges. Except the controls make me feel like I'm playing it while waking from general anaesthetic. 

[Bacon Horsemeat]

It serves its purpose, something to pass the time with a Nintendo flavour

[shirubagan]

38 minutes ago, Bacon Horsemeat said:

It serves its purpose, something to pass the time with a Nintendo flavour

It actually makes me not like Nintendo, something I never thought I’d say. 

[Alex W.]

I didn’t even make it through the tutorial. This has the most insipidly dull handling model of any racing game on iOS. Mario Run distilled the game down to its most mentally interesting but physically undemanding parts, this is almost a glorified QTE.

[Paulando]

It makes sense from a business perspective though. It's not made for people like us. We already have Switches, and Mario Kart 8, and Nintendo Online subs. This is for the people who will never buy into all that, and are happy downloading 'free' games, then pissing their money away on virtual tokens.

 

Selling a fully-fledged game for £9.99 free from IAPs won't capture this audience, because they'll turn their noses up at the price of entry. Shame, but that's the state of mobile gaming.

[Alex W.]

It’s very much Nintendo slavishly following that established approach rather than coming up with an answer though. Which is disappointing.

[joffocakes]

Why can't it be Nintendo's own subscription-style Apple Arcade with all the Box Boys and Pullbolxes and Dillons I could want?

[CheekyLee]

I feel people are being unfair. There's plenty to like about it so far, having just gotten through the first ranked cup so I could add friends. I have 13480, but one guy in a Facebook group I'm in has over 17000 in the same cup, which WILL get me working just like other people's amazing scores did in Mario Run.

 

I'll be sticking with it, and may even make a payment just to annoy some internet crybabies!

[cubik]

It just didn't click with me.

I started playing it on the bog and didn't even end up with dead legs from sitting there too long.

[MK-1601]

(Aside: I think the award for Best Mobile Game should be a trophy of a baby fawn, to honour the game that most frequently gives you dead legs on the bog.)

 

I had a quick go of this earlier, I can't quite decide if the 'advanced' controls are shit or there's just a knack to them. Feathering the screen like the Minotaur Rescue controls seems to work quite well.

 

I'm sure this will make a ton of money from people who get deeply into it, who are as has been pointed out probably not Switch owners.

[Rex Grossman]

19 minutes ago, CheekyLee said:

I'll be sticking with it, and may even make a payment just to annoy some internet crybabies!

 

Yes, spend your own money on it just to annoy them!

 

That’ll show them!

[Harsin]

1 hour ago, CheekyLee said:

I'll be sticking with it, and may even make a payment just to annoy some internet crybabies!

[Rudderless]

40 minutes ago, CheekyLee said:

I feel people are being unfair. There's plenty to like about it so far, having just gotten through the first ranked cup so I could add friends. I have 13480, but one guy in a Facebook group I'm in has over 17000 in the same cup, which WILL get me working just like other people's amazing scores did in Mario Run.

 

I'll be sticking with it, and may even make a payment just to annoy some internet crybabies!

 

Wasting your own money on crap games to own the libs

[TehStu]

Yeah I'm definitely crying about only having a Switch with MK8. May as well bin my phone. 

[HarryBizzle]

2 hours ago, CheekyLee said:

I feel people are being unfair. There's plenty to like about it so far, having just gotten through the first ranked cup so I could add friends. I have 13480, but one guy in a Facebook group I'm in has over 17000 in the same cup, which WILL get me working just like other people's amazing scores did in Mario Run.

 

I'll be sticking with it, and may even make a payment just to annoy some internet crybabies!

 

It might be fun, or even excellent, but that's beside the point for me. I'm willing to forgo playing a game I might otherwise enjoy if playing it sends a message to the developer that this sort of crap is something I'm willing to put up with and that they should make more of.

 

If microtransactions ever make it into their Switch games, it will be because of people like you. 

[Capwn]

Mobile subscription packages have worked very well in some cases, people 100% want and enjoy them with some games but typically the game should be free of subscriptions initially and THEN if it's popular try and create a subscription model to help pay for further development of the game that rewards loyal players. 

 

Nintendo just jumped from 0-100 on this so it doesn't feel earned. They would have been better off starting with a fun game that offers custom items for hardcore fans and see if the game is popular enough to make it worth providing a subscription service.

 

It's just 100% not possible to go back to the days where you paid a few dollars to buy the game up straight on mobile, that's just not going to happen. These 'netflix' services coming out now are not the answer either, it's more of an alternative model available for people who love games.