With just under two months to go until Mario Kart 8, I thought I'd revisit a little something I did two years ago with Mario Kart 7.
In that first challenge, starting 5th of July at 14,205 coins, I had until the end of the month to reach 20,000 coins - the last unlock milestone on the game. I had to race properly though. That was what I'd said to myself. Race properly or the challenge is void. After all, a challenge is no fun if your just staying in last and quickly collecting the coins half a lap behind everyone else. And so I raced through many GPs, earning podiums almost every time, getting over 30 coins almost every time. And so, since that time I had played the game less. In fact, for the whole of 2013, I hadn't even reached 25,000. At the beginning of March though, I did. With Mario Kart 8's release coming up within two months, I started playing MK7 more throughout that month. That's when - beginning of April - I reached the point where I thought to myself "Why not make another coin challenge out of this?" There is one major difference though. At that point in 2012, I had just finished my first year of college. This year, I'm on my first year of university, and with an end of year show coming up, I've got work to be doing. So I've got less time for gaming. Hence the two months instead of one. Anyway, this challenge. Starting today, with a coin total of 26,433, I have to reach 30,000 coins by the release date of Mario Kart 8. If that gets reached easily though, an extension to 32,000 should make things harder. And so, here I go. [New Edition Note: While I didn't cover it on the blog, I had actually passed the challenge. The Excel document I still have saved reveals that I completed the challenge a week before MK8's release with 30,028 coins to my profile. I had gone beyond the set 12 GP's per week for the last two to bring in almost 2000 in just those two weeks. I suspect uni must have finished for the year for that to have happened.]
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So, after the Nintendo Direct of Wednesday, more footage of Mario Kart 8 was shown. As well as numerous new courses, more returning characters were shown. No new characters or Retro courses were shown, but this does make one think. With nine new courses already shown off in the two trailers, as well as two returning 3DS courses, the tracks in this game are looking great. We know of the anti-grav feature - allowing traversal on walls and ceilings - as well as the return of gliders, underwater driving and bikes. Customisation will return with more options. Coins do return, but their purpose hasn't been clarified.
Some things still remain a mystery, and I'm going to have a crack at giving my predictions and why I think they will happen. And so, 27 days later and also on the deadline I set, the save data of my Mario Kart 7 cart reads 20,000 coins. Roughly 13 hours put into it, and god knows how many grand prix cups, the challenge was to reach 20,000 coins by the end of this month thus completing [in a collectable way] the game.
So, we all like Mario Kart in some way or form. I mean, who doesn't? But after the main introduction of Classic levels [or Retro], starting with the DS version, I feel hasn't been very productive. Don't get me wrong, blasting around tracks from the past with that new gloss that comes with more graphical power is always welcome. This argument doesn't follow the graphical capabilities of the console though. Rather, it follows the physics and game mechanics added to each new rendition of Mario Kart.
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