Mario Kart World: At the Starting Line

Where was I?


Ah yes…Nintendo having a cow (man).

At least, doing a dressing down of Mario Kart World for the Switch 2 is of a severe interest to me, but I’m sometimes guilty of needing to warm up a bit first before I can get directly to the matter at hand. I’ve had “business down south” as of late, which is more or less my unnecessarily cryptic way in referring to an extended gaming sabbatical, as it were. Not a break away from gaming, mind you, but a break from writing about gaming, which you’d think were not entirely separated modes of being, though I take the time now to reexamine the notion as to why. I think the very essence of play is vital to the grandeur of human endeavor, and has a deep relevancy in filling this abstract void within the self, rejuvenating an individual in ways hard to describe without sounding like a completely pretentious wanker without doing so, but here we are. I think it’s important to display humility and ratify a sense of humor in any matter as much as it is worthwhile to take serious what we often don’t consider thoroughly enough, hence my address of the realities involving the different modes of play and engaging with gaming in a myriad of ways.


Some ways of engaging more compelling than others

To wit; I also think one of the difficulties of writing about games is that it changes the frame of reference of how one plays them, which is a radical notion to me when I really stop to consider the details involved in any in-depth degree. I don’t think it’s a dubious claim to suggest writers need to frame their efforts in scribing the world through some kind of pre-established narrative, at this moment now considering what an authentically “anarchist” way of writing would even look like…if such a thing were even possible. In the case of Mario Kart World, which when boiled down to its finer elements, would be considered a sports related title, it still brings forth the notion that even in competitive sports reporting, or maybe very much so in a credit to competitive sports reporting, one is always attempting to magnify or articulate a narrative when sharing the content through their own perception to the crowd at large. A purely mathematical pretense in describing the events would come off as psychotic, I would speculate, and would rob the players and their spectators of the very humanity that makes the game even function on a basic social level.


Truth is relative: there is no race without the non-racers

Which ties nicely into my trepidation in writing about Mario Kart World, even though my lack of writing about games has really only been a few weeks. For anyone who’s followed me for long enough, thats a pittance to the sometimes months and even years away from the keyboard I’ve taken in terms of just thinking, playing, and being away from the keyboard. I’ve continued to consider both a contextual narrative for gaming and writing about play itself, and discussing the metaphysical realities therein and relationally speaking to things even as silly as a cow grinding on a rail with a kart, or about the notions involved with the humanity at play in something that seems as by the numbers and basic as Mario Kart tends to be. Seeing elements within the gameplay footage of MKW, like the open world geography, brings forth the essence of Nintendo doing the complete opposite of what they pulled off with Mario Kart Tour, in that instead of distilling the MK experience into the smallest idea possible, they wanted to really open the premise up and go as broad as imaginable, continuing to borrow from the hyped zeitgiest that has permeated their brand as a knock on effect from the lingering excitements that the Breath of the Wild strategem has provided for their catalog since the calamity occurred.


Life changing, to say the least

Which may sound quite disjointed to some, referencing events hither and thither that carry referential rapport, and conjuring thematics of possible revelatory status to the subject at hand, one that within its code and most reductionist sense of self, begets the notion of humanity thriving through the essence of a bloviating bovine, and all the anthropomorphizing that goes on there after, but a kart race is more than the sum of its parts, and therefore possesses a deeper dimensionality just as much as a cow is more than simply the context of its moo, transformed by both its surroundings, its observers, its relevancy to the structure of the function of the race, the avatar of the player, the controller of a kart, and the competitor in an event. The cow becomes the conduit through which we experience the simulacrum of Nintendo’s hegemony, all of which we become apart of through the mere spectacle of commerce distilled, the witnessed and the testified all benchmarks of the race won before even the starting line was crossed.

~Pashford

Mario Kart World Enough To Drive Switch 2 Sales?

Sometimes, it feels like Nintendo is really milking their franchises for all their worth…


…and sometimes the involvement of a cow is more
literal than metaphorical, thankfully

With gamers still reeling from the Switch 2 reveal, and Nintendo doing their Treehouse Livestream showcasing some of the new software, a lot of sentiments that are the loudest and clearest clogged up the comments section and made people’s opinions abundantly clear.


…something something customer always
right?

A perspective I was guessing would be one of the most commanding after I read about the price following the reveal yesterday, and I can understand why. Living ain’t cheap, and affording anything that isn’t essential right now is a challenging prospect. The US usually lucks out with cheaper prices (relatively speaking) with electronics compared to some other unlucky territories due to regulations, and the $450 USD price tag for the launch day of the Switch 2 on June 5th is still a hard pill to swallow for most, not to mention the reality of the games being more expensive as well, with Donkey Kong Bananza being priced at $69.99 and Mario Kart World at $79.99, respectively.


Truly prophetic words from a woman
ahead of her time

Not that anyone with half a brain didn’t see this coming, especially with global economics being impacted with US tariffs involving materials utilized in hardware components, thus making electronics having prices that have soared sky high recently, and it is not hard for one to imagine Nintendo’s new console was bound to be a pricier affair right from the start. With all things considered, I’m guessing the Switch 2 is barely being sold at a profit, which is slightly off baseline for Nintendo, generally opting for weaker hardware overall for a better profit margin, but they likely knew where they would be standing with the ever increasing prices for hardware specs and the realities of costly materials needed for the hardware production to follow suit. The big N usually has a software ace up their sleeve, but one of the only big titles that will be available on launch day will be Mario Kart World, which admittedly, looks great from early gameplay footage, but does leave that all important question hanging in the air…


Is Mario Kart World enough to drive sales?

I think this is a moment where you have one of those weird forgone conclusions. A lot of people clearly want the Switch 2 to be cheaper, but that was likely to be true no matter what the price point could have been. While I agree that Mario Kart World doesn’t necessarily come off as a bombshell of a launch title per say (real earth shattering stuff, I mean) , based on tried and true gameplay of a tested and vetted series with historical sales data to prove what a power house it is, the series is absolutely a system seller, awesome new open world approach involved or not. The price for the system isn’t going to be a problem for diehards when preorders go up April 9th, and if history repeats itself as I predict it will, the system is likely to be sold out and hard to find for the remainder of the year if trends hold true, which means Nintendo is playing their cards just right.


Seen here: the playing card umbrella Nintendo
will undoubtedly use to shield themselves from all
the money raining down upon them when the Switch
2 launches

The irony for me definitely remains intact that as it stands currently, I have neither the time nor money to really invest in gaming as a hobby on a regular basis, so footage involving a new Nintendo console almost just acts as a quaint distraction. It does feel a bit queer to me that where once upon a time I was always a day one kind of guy, no matter what was going on, I’ve been regulated to the sidelines for the last couple of console launches (PS5 and Series X), and it doesn’t look to be much different with the Switch 2. Tech and video game hobbiysm definitely seems to be a sub-culture ruled by the D.I.N.Ks of the world currently, and they will celebrate mightily come June 5th.

~Pashford

Bait and Switch (2)

There is truth in advertising, they say.


There can also be some underhanded, limp dick
cryptic ass bullshit involved in advertising, as well

Not so much so was the case with Nintendo’s reveal of the Switch 2 earlier today, as they went on at lengths about their new console…and now that Nintendo has done their first in-depth look at the Switch 2, and featured a huge information blow out involving their next console in all of it’s tantalizing glory, I delightfully take a satisfying moment in providing a huge breakdown of just what Nintendo showcased about the Switch 2, in all of it’s delightful glory.

…is what I’d love to be saying. Very unfortunately, due to how my schedule ended up playing out today, I have nearly no time to do any kind of deep dive whatsoever on what Nintendo did showcase today about their next console, the Switch 2, but I can mention a couple of quick details considering the magnitude level of news the event represents.

The two big details, being release date and price, are June 5th respectively, and the price tag, which interestingly enough, was not even showcased during the reveal itself but only after the fact, is looking to be about $450 USD, which I think ended up being the mid point sweet spot between the optimistic low-ballers and the cynical doubters of what the price point of the console was likely to be. Which, to that point, I think Nintendo probably opted not to advertise front and center what the price point would be, due to the number not exactly screaming “good value” within the earshot to the casual audience, while maintaining a relatively consistent historical precedent of Nintendo holding firm on not selling consoles at a major loss. This is all the while dealing with the fallout of very unfortunate but seriously relevant real world economic issues that many tech companies will be facing the rambunctiously negative ramifications of the foreseeable future, with no one who has any real idea of just how positively likely that financial situation will buff out in an agreeable way down the road.


Anyone? Bueller?

One more damning aspect of the whole package is that Nintendo didn’t even flash a quick blurb of official tech specs during the reveal, and I read after the fact they didn’t want to go with the name “Super Nintendo Switch”, so as to not draw attention to the hardware standard involved. I think combined with what could be considered an underwhelming showing of new first party Nintendo titles from the get go, with only Mario Kart World (more of an open world Forza: Horizon take on the MK formula) and Donkey Kong Bonanza (think Red Faction meets Super Mario Odyssey) having substantial footage, and you get kind of a whelmed sense of delivery about the whole thing, albeit one with a glimmer of potential energy about it.

The Joycons being able to be utilized as if a mouse for a keyboard certainly opens up the door of awesome port ideas for not just FPS games, but PC titles in general, and presents excellent opportunity for game design ideas across the board, especially with the amount of third party support Nintendo already has on board in releasing software for their console.

While perhaps not one of the most face-meltingly awesome hardware reveal in Nintendo’s history certainly an interesting one I’m looking forward to exploring in the coming days.

~Pashford

Mind the Gap

After a satisfying day of work, it’s always nice to just finally fall over and hit the hay


Unless the “hay” looks like this…then it hits *you*

Now that we’ve finally made it to April, I can kind of take a small breather, having successfully done my tour of duty of hyper-productivity by posting everyday throughout March. The upside to doing so was staying incredibly active, and pushing myself to consistently write at a moment’s notice, in a respectable effort in continuing to hone my craft. The downside, as always is the case with this kind of content output, ends up being a wavering quality over time, I fear (though there was this recent banger I was particularly fond of.) Even as I type this now, I feel quite spent, both physically and mentally, lamenting the serious lack of gaming I’ve been so distant from during the process of trying to keep on top of putting the thoughts out there. I honestly probably should have taken the day off.


Though those ironically end up being more work
than relaxation by the end

Which is why this post is a short one, in any case. To that point, reading about early hands on with Doom: The Dark Ages isn’t really lighting my fire of interests involving the title, which is of deep concern to me, as I am a long time fan of the series quite eager to wet my whistle with the blood of the demonically fallen once again. I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised by how reports are indicating how The Dark Ages are unfolding…as when you ratchet the bar up so much with rambunctious acrobatics and high-energy complexity that Eternal’s verticality represented, the only place you have left to go is downward. I’ve noticed when games want to pair down, after some mixed feedback of being “too much”, they usually kick to the curb some of the more interesting design dynamics in favor of novelty, and The Dark Ages sounds like it may be a victim of very much the same thing from reading early impressions, where the big focus seems to be on a far more stripped down, spread out, boots on the ground approach of the moment to moment gameplay.


Imagine this, but you know, lots of fire, too

I can’t help but feel the sidestepping approach of design, both literally and figuratively, in moving aside from a want of progress in favor of a more toned down dynamic within the Doom series feels like such a betrayal of where we went with Eternal’s focuses. One of the leads on the project (Hugo Martin) even said during the pre-hype phase of the release of the 2016 follow up went down the way it did was due to feeling like Doom 2016 was a bit too repetitive due to the lack of variety (and god damn do I wish I knew what interview that was [EDIT: Found it, check out around 5:30 for the critique), and now we seem to be inching closer back to that reality. Even though they’re very separate game series, I feel as if Mario has had similar hill and valley’s in it’s library, and when one title almost gets too ambitious with it’s jumping mechanics, the immediate followup ends up being this neutered novelty turning it’s back on diverse design choices to draw in a greater number of the lowest common denominators after negative feedback whines about the demanding action of the games pretense.

The customer is not always right, but second hand opinions on gameplay loop feels aren’t always, either.

~Pashford