After 18 years and 14 previous installments of the 'Mario Kart' series, Nintendo have come up with a new twist on the beloved franchise with 'Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit'.
Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit
The twist this time around is that you’re not driving a virtual kart in game – but a physical remote control one with Mario or Luigi – depending on the version you’ve bought – at the wheel and ready to whizz around your lounge.
A tiny camera is attached to the vehicle and it connects to the Nintendo Switch via a QR code so you can see onscreen what the driver is “looking” at.
The package also comes with two sets of arrows and four cardboard gates so you can construct your own circuits – ably guided by easy-to-follow on screen instructions once you’ve downloaded the free game software.
It’s fun to design your own tracks, however big or small your surroundings, though if you want to be truly ambitious with the circuit, it’s best to play in handheld mode as there’s a 5m range between the game and the car. You can also bring in your own obstacles in the form of toys, boxes, your pet cat…. Just be mindful that the car may encounter problems if you’ve rugs or uneven surfaces in its path.
Once you’ve created your track, the familiar ‘Mario Kart’ cups are there to work through in single-player mode and you can marvel at the way your room transforms on screen with clever visual effects such as Piranha Plants and sandstorms, while encountering koopa shells and Bob-ombs will stop your car in its tracks in the real world, just as it would on screen.
The three-race cups give you the option to redraw out the circuit each time, or keep it as it is. Like other ‘Mario Karts’, the surroundings of each race in the cup are very different from one another, so there’s no urgent need to continually map out new courses as the differing effects are enough to keep things fresh.
Completing the cups unlocks extra characters and vehicle features on screen, as well as AR extras to use in custom courses, while time trial mode is also available. However, it can be difficult to know exactly how well you’re bettering your times because you need to set up a new course every time you launch a new gaming session.
While you’ve got four virtual opponents in the cups, in the real world, up to four players can compete on the track at once, though that requires purchasing new kit for each competitor. It’s not yet clear if Nintendo will be adding additional cars with drivers other than Mario or Luigi, but it’s likely they’d be a welcome add-on for users if they did.
The car itself is very responsive, though you need to decide whether you get best results from watching it whizz around the room (and possibly missing any virtual obstacles on screen) or watching what’s going on on TV – and then accidentally hitting your coffee table when the WiFi connection has slowed things down.
Overall, the game has made clever and inventive use of AR technology to give a truly unique gaming experience, but be mindful of the limitations of your own surroundings.
Rating: 4/5
By Viki Waters