Why is it hard to make a decent Kart racer?

Mario Kart is obviously excluded. I play any Mario Kart and have fun.

I just bought my kids Sonic Kart with Banjo for the 360. Frustrating and just doesn't have the same appeal. Shrek Kart sucks. Chocobo kart sucks. Why is this genre so hard and how does Nintendo do it a billion times better with Mario? I get frustrated with Mario Kart, but then I play other games and look at the tracks and the controls and get 10x more frustrated while playing with my kids.

It's marketed towards children, so the developers really don't need to try that hard if their goal was to make shovelware in the first place. If they can get a parent to walk into a store and think, "hey, I'll get this for my kids" then they've succeeded.

Mario Kart was pretty hardcore back in the day . The Wii one is very kid friendly, though I think it's much less entertaining. Double Dash for Gamecube is my personal favorite.

Get Crash Team Racing for PSOne. Hands down my favorite kart racer ever. Still looks decent today which is rare for an early 3d game.

ING BLUE SHELLS!!! yep, thats all i got... im done here :/

Try Blur, it's basically a cart racer with real cars.

http://www.giantbomb.com/blur/61-25961/

If you have a PS3 I highly recommend Modnation Racers. You'll thank me later

[quote name='Action Bastard']If you have a PS3 I highly recommend Modnation Racers. You'll thank me later [/QUOTE]

Unless they fixed the load times through some kind of update... no he won't. lol

[quote name='TheShepherdSauce']Unless they fixed the load times through some kind of update... no he won't. lol[/QUOTE]


oh yeah load times on that bad boy were horrendous made it very hard to enjoy. i wouldnt mind seeing a kart racer based off of wacky races that old cartoon where hanna barberra characters raced each other but for me most kart racers get old quick.

[quote name='TheShepherdSauce']Unless they fixed the load times through some kind of update... no he won't. lol[/QUOTE]
I'm pretty sure they have by now. Even if they haven't, a kart racer that allows you to customize your driver and cart however you like and make your own race tracks as you see fit at the cost of a minor lag in loading? Worth it IMO.

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing is a lot better than Mario Kart Wii.

[quote name='KingBroly']Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing is a lot better than Mario Kart Wii.[/QUOTE]

It's not that bold a statement given that MKW is a Party game in kart trappings. The Mario Karts started to go to shit with MKDD when needless kart designs were thrown in, additional, nonstandard weapons were added, and tracks were widened. (The second racer -- the supposed "gimmick" everybody pisses and moans about-- really wasn't that big of a deal.) MKDS kept it up with more novelties that added nothing to gameplay and in fact took away from the tactical aspects of weaponry (i.e. the trinity of shells, shrooms, and peels). MKW threw it all out the window.

MK7 can suck a dong, I hastened the onset of arthritis with MKDS. Never again.

The first Bandicoot karter on PS1 that Halo05 mentioned was pretty good. The controls were a little "slidey," if that's an acceptable word, but the boost mechanic was accessible and worthwhile, so it added a bit of depth. It suffered only in that it had some odd track design and the characterization was "in your face" in that zany 90s way, which ages terribly.

A terrific karter no one has mentioned is Wacky Races for the DC. It has probably the best characterization of any karter ever, and it holds up to continued replays. It had a coin mechanic to enable weapons that should be the standard for all karters with weapons -- it was exploitable but that could be corrected in a next gen karter. Its track design could be stupid, and it had an embedded "story mode" to unlock characters/tracks that was ball-bustingly challenging, but overall, it's a winner. The voices were so good, the animation was great, the theme was solid throughout. It was always fun to play because of that, even though the actual karting control wasn't as solid as MK64, MKDD, or Crash Team Racing.

And I haven't played Blur as I don't have a PS3, it may have done good things. The one person I know in RL with a PS3 doesn't have it. Maybe I should buy it for him so I can stop by and check it out.

I think the reason that good karters are so tough to find is that a good karter needs two things done really well to have lasting value: controls and character. Too often one or both are sacrificed to simply get something out the door, because the bigger problem with karters is the general attitude toward them. I don't think they're viewed as games so much as they are more about monetizing a brand/IP. They're not made to be a memorable and lasting gaming experience.

Which is to say, karters advertise the Mushroom Kingdom (for example) the way that McDonald's plastic cups advertise shitty summer action movies.

EDIT: And I'm not so cynical to suggest that ALL games exist to monetize an IP. I think that karters are subject to this more than other genres. So I guess to answer the OP, it's not that it's difficult to make a decent Karter, it's that no one wants to. They don't view Karters that way, they aren't games as much as they are plastic cups.

[quote name='KingBroly']Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing is a lot better than Mario Kart Wii.[/QUOTE]

+1. My son and I have a blast with All Stars Racing and haven't had much desire to get MKW. Probably the best $20 I've spent on a game.

Did anyone else here play this?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A17w_K20J6Q

MK: Wii was horrible.

[quote name='ihadFG']Did anyone else here play this?[/QUOTE]

I picked up the DC version for nothing, just to see. It was shit.

Kart racers are today what generic platformers were in the past. A lazy way to throw a movie/TV license into a video game.

I've noticed a few that appear to be the exact same code base recycled with different art assets depending on the media license du jour.

There are some racing games that are the exact same game with graphics changed. I don't think the majority of people have tried these, though I pity the child who gets one as a gift.

Racing games are really, really good on the Wii with the steering wheel controls. I played Sonic & Sega Racing on the Wii and it was good, though I only played some of it, and I haven't played through the entire game. If someone would actually make a decent kart racer WITHOUT RUBBERBAND AI then I might buy it.

I am on the fence about Modnation racers as I heard the rubberband AI was horrible (I haven't actually played the game yet so I can't confirm), I want to actually be able to win thank you, and with the mention of the loading times I may not be checking it out at all. I really don't like frustrating games, especially when the frustration is intentionally programmed into the game in the form of bad AI or AI that is impossible to beat because of the way its programmed.

I'm not a fan of kart racers but Diddy Kong Racing was fun back in the day. I can't get past the AI rubberbanding in most of these games.

And now that we have played more of Sonic All-Star Racing, I must say, that game is pure fun. Great game. What else can we buy that gives a similar experience?

I'm gonna have to try Sonic All-Stars Racing, I guess, because of the buzz in this thread.

I had the funnest times with Mario Kart 64 and Mario Kart DD.

[quote name='SaraAB'] If someone would actually make a decent kart racer WITHOUT RUBBERBAND AI then I might buy it.[/QUOTE]

I disagree that rubberbanding is the problem people make it out to be. It's no fun lapping people. Close battles for position are what make the game. They are the heart and soul of the karting genre. And that's what rubberbanding preserves in an admittedly cheap way for the 1P karting experience.

Furthermore, without rubberbanding, there's nothing compelling the average karter to learn the tracks and master the karting mechanics. If you're being annoyed by rubberbanding, then you haven't mastered a given track/cup. If you feel like you're being forced to race a given cup again and again, that's the point. The designers want you to recognize the fast lines in the tracks, and to not only boost and skid, but do it appropriately.

Without rubberbanding, quarter-lap leads can be had using poor, sloppy tactics -- i.e. without mastery of the controls. You don't need to hit all the boosts, you can lose a skid here and there, and you'll still preserve that half-lap lead. Soon enough you're lapping the field in a three-lap race using okay but not masterful control of the karting mechanics.

It's why 1P karters that exclude rubberbanding (or online karting experiences against shitty human opponents) don't hold up. You need that tension there. A victory means more when you nail a skid and boost to stay in front, knowing that if you miss it, you get passed by some AI who suddenly showed up bird doggin you.

Yes it's cheap for the AI to jockey itself into position artificially to maintain that tension, but without it, the game would effectively be a time trial with other karts in your way. Worse yet, it would be a time trial that 90% of karters would play without ever exploring the depth of the karting mechanics.

So it's a necessary evil. There has to be a way to get AI karts in position to create that tension. Rubberbanding. Blue Shells. loads of thunderbolts. Pick your goddamn poison.