14 DAY TRIAL // Mario Kart 8 will feature some interesting experimental mechanics, it seems, as some of its tracks will have portions where players will hover over the asphalt with the help of magnets.
According to Kosuke Yabuki, the game's director, they're designed to be more than merely eye candy, as players will be able to make strategic use of those segments in order to boost their standing or even throw an opponent off the course.
The latest installment in the popular racing franchise will come out for the Wii U on May 30, and Producer Hideki Kono said that the developers' main priority was creating interesting courses that would engage and challenge players to experiment with different new ways of playing.
When players enter the anti-gravity sections of the tracks, the wheels on their kart will turn to the sides and they will be able to race up walls, upside down, as well as through waterfalls, without ever touching the ground.
Some of the courses will force players to go through the anti-gravity sections, while others will offer players the choice of whether to take the classical route or to go through the hover parts of the race.
"One of the things you'll see with the later courses is antigravity being given to the player as an option, so you'll be driving on the course, and now the course branches off and you can either continue driving on the ground, or maybe go into the antigravity area to avoid an enemy or pick up an extra block," Kono said.
Players will be able to decide if they want to take a different route that has a boost that allows them to take off and use their glider, and the new additions will add more variety to course design, fundamentally changing the player's strategy.
Furthermore, when players collide with each other in an anti-gravity zone, instead of simply spinning and slowing down, they'll receive a speed boots, and Yabuki anticipates that many players will use this feature strategically and that the antigravity tracks will make them want to crash into each other instead of being cautious like before.
Until now, colliding with other characters was something that players never wanted to do because the risks far outweighed the benefits, so generally players tried to steer clear of each other. With the anti-gravity sections of Mario Kart 8, Yabuki believes that players will find ways to use collisions to their advantage, and they might even see new strategies that even the developers are not yet aware of.
Mario Kart 8 will hit North America, Europe and Australia on May 30, exclusively on Nintendo's Wii U gaming console.