Customer Ratings & Reviews

I've never been much of a fan of the Mario Kart games, but this one really grabbed me. The graphics are amazing, the gameplay is incredibly fun, and the online works perfectly. The DLC coming out now makes it even more worth picking up.

There is a lot of new stuff - good and bad - Mario Kart 8 brings to the series. Having played every Mario Kart game since the SNES, I was really excited for this one. And I'm still mostly still thrilled about it, though I'm disappointed they decided to make some very bad decisions that took away what would have otherwise been a perfect game. What I love: [+] Graphics. FINALLY we get some HD Mario Kart action! It was always so hard playing the AAA first-party titles on the Wii, since they decided against going with the coming HD era. MK Wii was a lot of fun and a great game, but looked terrible on my 55" HDTV. Mario Kart 8 on the other hand looks absolutely gorgeous. [+] The audio. I love all the music, especially the title screen theme which pulls inspiration from the original Super Mario Kart theme, which has a great nostalgia factor to it. All the music tracks and sound effects sound great, especially in 5.1 surround, and helps you become very immersed in the game. [+] Online. Much improved since Mario Kart Wii, probably one of the most fun parts of the game. However, Nintendo still has a long way to go to catch up to the standard online functionality of any modern Xbox or PlayStation game. [+] New items. I like the new boomerang, and I *love* the Super Horn #can destroy blue shells or any other projectile item#. That said, I *hate* the coins. I like them as a gameplay mechanic, and as something you can pick up directly from the course, but not as an item box item. Half the time when you're in first place you'll just get coins, rather than at least a green shell or something that can defend you against attacks. [+] Tracks. They of course did an awesome job at creating new tracks as well as adapting the retro tracks for MK8. You have a lot of variety, from underwater, to space, to the Sugar Rush track from Wreck-it Ralph #okay, it's not officially from there but it's close enough#. And I appreciate that in standard Mario Kart fashion, they included several shortcuts across the maps to mix it up a bit. [+] The highlight reel. It's always fun to take a look at the "highlights" of the race and play back in slow motion the point where you destroyed your friend with a red shell. And the fact that you can save 6 of your favorites to go back to at any time is also pretty cool. [+] Collectible stamps. Adds another layer of replayability to collect all 90 stamps in the game. These can be used in your optional Miiverse posts. But for OCD people like me who just like to 100% the game, they present an extra challenge #requires beating the GPs with each character and beating the staff ghosts on all Time Trial courses#. What I don't like: [-] Default option after the race ends. Instead of mashing A at the end of the race like you're used to, you have to train yourself to take a chill pill and wait for the post-race menu to come up, press down first, then A. Because the default option is to go to the highlight reel instead of starting the next race. A very small nitpick, but still something that slightly bothers me. [-] No overall screen to view game progress. If you've ever played Super Mario 3D World, you'll know what I'm talking about because that game did it better than any other game I've seen before. They had a menu in there that listed out the status of *everything* in the game that you've done, so you have a one-stop place to see how far you are to 100%ing the game. Even MK Wii had a little Driver License menu that showed all your cups beaten, which characters/tracks you use the most, and other various statistics. There is nothing of the sort in MK8 unfortunately. They need to just add a single screen that shows your cup progress, character unlock progress, vehicles/tires/parachutes unlocked progress, stamps collected, staff ghosts beaten, and general offline/online gameplay stats. [-] No post-GP award ceremony. Even though it was only like 15 seconds long and most of the time you skipped it, it was still always fun to see the results of your grand prix in an interesting way. These have been around in every other MK game. In MK8, instead of an award ceremony, it just plays back a few clips of you driving around the courses and shows you your trophy. Boring. It almost makes it feel pointless to spend four races competing but then not get too see the top three winners being rewarded accordingly. Instead it's just: Race over, here's a rotating trophy, back to main menu now. [-] Missing characters. I like that they have 30 characters now, which is more than any other MK game. But they shouldn't have done that at the expense of so many other awesome characters that were previously playable. Because in MK8, FIVE of them are baby characters, and SEVEN of them are the various Bowser Castle bosses #like Iggy, Wendy, etc#. And then out of nowhere they also added "Pink Gold Peach" who is basically a Pink version of Metal Mario? No idea where that came from. So we have 3 Peach characters #normal, baby, pink gold#. And I appreciate the sheer number of characters, but there are so many better ones they could have brought back from previous games, such as: Birdo, Dry Bones, Dry Bowser, Diddy Kong, Funky Kong, King Boo, Paratroopa, Petey Piranha, etc. [-] BATTLE MODE! This is really the big one, the only negative that is really worth deducting a full star for. Battle mode, which was probably my favorite mode in the past, is now useless. Rather than epic arena maps we're used to, like Skyscraper, Big Donut, etc., you can only do battle mode on the normal race tracks. Translation: Completely un-fun. You drive around in circles around the track, take forever to find someone, and when you finally do, they're driving the opposite direction so you have half a second to react. Then you wait again for someone else. You simply can't have a decent battle on a track designed for racing. They are too big, too narrow, and too linear. Please bring back arena maps, Nintendo! I will happily purchase a $10 DLC pack to add these back! Conclusion: I love MK8, easily a must-buy game if you have a Wii U. But why oh why did they have to ruin battle mode? Luckily, I haven't lost all hope yet, since just about everything in my cons list could potentially be fixed through downloadable updates. But will it ever happen? Guess we'll just keep our fingers crossed...

At least since the gamecube version, this is the best Mario Kart out there. It's hard to compare it to the N64 or prior because of the gameplay difference, but this is by far the best of the newer batch.

The WiiU and Nintendo continue to impress with their amazing first party line up. The DLC packs that Nintendo has released and will release addon even greater value to an already amazing title!

Forget about those regular racing games, get into the chaotic racing world known as Mario Kart. This 8th installment to the series bring more chaos than the predecessors with more items new characters. Mario Kart 8 also has better internet connectivity than the last installment and has the bonus of you uploading your races on Youtube and getting bonus tracks, vehicles, and racers from the Nintendo eShop. So the game can be fresh for a very long time.

We have some of the older titles in this series for the original Wii. Mario Kart 8 adds to the excitement and like previous versions is fun to play from our 6-year-old to grandparents.

Gorgeous HD graphics, classic Mario Kart gameplay, and enough new additions to make it distinct from past versions. All Wii U owners have to have this one in their library.

Awesome graphics, 4 player split screen, and online multiplayer! What more can you really ask for?

I play PS4 and my wife always complains that I play. So, I gave her a wiiU with Mario kart. All my problems were solved! We actually play together and its a really nice game.

All the great elements of Mario Kart are present. The game is easy to play and provides plenty of entertainment for friends and family. Online gameplay is smooth and quick.

This game is amazing. The graphics are killer and the game runs super smooth and I have not found any frame rate drops at all. The sound is killer with my surround sound system as well. Nintendo did a great job with this and with the bonus of a free game if you register MK8 on club nintendo by the end of June, well, that make this purchase a no brainer.

My son and I can't stop playing it's so much fun and intense best Mario Kart so far!

My son loves Mario!! This Mario Kart does not disapoint!! We have older versions and it was worth buying the new one!! Great packages you can add on!!

I preordered this game and was extremely excited about it. The graphics are great, it's exactly what one would expect from Mario Kart. What I did notice was after completing the first circuit nothing felt much different from Mario Kart 7 or even Mario Kart Wii. It felt the same with enhanced graphics. Even the online left much to be desired though I didn't expect they would add voice chat or anything like that to the online experience. My biggest beef was the fact that they removed the spare item box. For as long as I could remember, you could always grab a shell or banana and hold it behind you for protection and grab another item to have at the ready. The lack of this can make the difference between 1st and 5th easily. In closing I would say Mario Kart Double Dash was by far my favorite and a revamped version of it would've been much more appreciated. I did enjoy the free game download promotion and free $10 MasterCard code for preorder.

Good amount of DLC, tracks, characters and let's not forget FUN! if you have a Wii U, make this one of the games you purchase, you will not regret it!

Really good game to play with multiple people. Played with my son a lot beat him and made him mad but had fun. I think it's a great purchase.

I've played every mario kart since the very beginning. This is the best in the series. If you like Mario Kart, You can't go wrong with #8.

Mario Kart is a staple family game. The kids and the adults alike love playing together and with the 4 player mode it is a blast.

This is the first game i bought for my wii u.This is by far the best marios kart to date.Great game play and alot of fun.

Hands down the best Wii U game out there, there is always something new to do with it. Expansion packs have been great.