Naturally, a list of your past opponents becomes available after racing them, as well as a list of friends you’ve added via the Nintendo 3DS’ home interface. It’s just another feature which will add to the user-friendliness of your Mario Kart 7 online experience. Simply, the channel now works as a streamlined inbox for notifications from Nintendo as well as other players, and it’s made a significant improvement from the convolution of the channel we saw in Mario Kart Wii. Handily, the notifications can be viewed from the 3DS dashboard, and they are presented in a tidy window-format from inside the Mario Kart Channel itself. Your 3DS system will fetch ghost data and community recommendations via SpotPass, and it will pick up others’ Time Trials data, while you have StreetPass activated. This time, however, the usability of the channel has undergone a much-required simplification. The Mario Kart Channel has also returned, and it is now in-built into the software interface. You want to restrict your races to the 150cc class? Or maybe you want to customise which items will appear during races? All of this is completely possible, with this very flexible, online gameplay mechanic. Any excuse to avoid having to input all those friend codes into your system is a good one, right? What’s better, is that each of these communities can adhere to specific rules of your own choosing. It’s definitely a much more streamlined approach and it works wonders for groups of friends playing from their bedrooms on weekends, students in their dorms after classes, and online forums, such as ZeldaInformer’s very own. Rather than having to add the friend codes of all of your individual racing buddies, kart-goers need only create an online community, and share the group’s invitation code with the party of players involved. If Mario Kart 7 has brought any major innovation to the series, it would undoubtedly be the online “communities”. With Mario Kart 7, it’s become evident that the once anti-online gaming developer has finally taken a hint from how gaming has evolved with the advent of gamer-oriented networks such as Xbox LIVE, and they’ve decided to test less-shallow waters in their attempt to sculpt an experience which avid online gamers will surely fall in love with. Mario Kart 7‘s most significant contributions to the series can be witnessed in the game’s online multiplayer modes – simply, Nintendo has never put out a better online title. It’s for this reason that, if you’re a serious Mario Kart fanatic, or you’re simply looking for a solid game to bring some playtime to your Nintendo 3DS, Mario Kart 7 is an essential purchase in the genre and on the platform. Mario Kart 7 doesn’t do anything entirely new, but it has refined almost perfectly everything the series has stood for, since its inception. Of course, this doesn’t imply that the latest 3DS kart racer isn’t an incredibly robust game, and it’s not worth your time – far from it – it just means that, at this point, it’s clear that the series is suffering from allowing any new, significant ideas to revolutionise the franchise. Which is why it’s somewhat questionable that Nintendo EAD (collaborating with Retro Studios) had refrained from introducing any significant innovations into the series with Mario Kart 7. Simply, the series has always been about finding fresh, new ways to enjoy playing together. Of course, it’s entirely possible for any single gamer to pick up a controller and perfect their skills at Nintendo’s fan-favourite racing series, in the Grand Prix mode… but, let’s face it, Mario Kart games were never meant to be played alone, and that’s a staple that has existed into the series’ four-player compatibility in Mario Kart 64, doubling up in Double Dash!!, and connecting to the worldwide web on the DS. Unarguably, these were the design intentions that inspired the original Super Mario Kart on the SNES all of those years ago, in 1992. Games in the Mario Kart series have always focused on one particular style of play: the way gamers can easily pick up and play together, and partake in the series’ mindless, chaotic fun.
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