New Mario Kart 8 Characters and Items Revealed

By Jorge Ba-oh 30.04.2014 12

New Mario Kart 8 Characters and Items Revealed on Nintendo gaming news, videos and discussion

During the Nintendo Direct presentation for Mario Kart 8 today, the company announced new items and characters for the upcoming Wii U game.

In addition to the previously revealed Boomerang, there'll also be a "Super Horn" that'll allow players to, quite literally, blow away other racers in nearby area - including their items, shells etc. Following a tradition set by Mario Kart 7, players will also be able to use a "Crazy Eight" - a swirling assortment of eight different items for a speedy recovery.


 

On the character front, two new racers were confirmed - Pink Gold Peach and Baby Rosalina, bringing the total roster up to 30. Those who want to play as Mii characters can also don their racing outfits in Mario Kart 8.

Nintendo also highlighted new online multiplayer features and Mario Kart TV in today's presentation.

Do these new characters and items appeal?

Box art for Mario Kart 8
Developer

Nintendo

Publisher

Nintendo

Genre

Driving

Players

4

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  9/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  9/10 (5 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date Out now   Australian release date Out now    Also on Also on Nintendo eShop

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SirLink is offline. SirLink 30.04.2014#1

The last two characters are pretty disappointing (how is Birdo not in this game o.O?) but everything else was spot-on. HYPE!

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Azuardo is offline. Azuardo 30.04.2014#2

That dirty Rosie's been whoring out. They're all at it. Then they force their kids to drive in nappies. Child abuse.

But seriously, the new characters are a disappointment really. I just wanted Dixie, and that's it. I hope the door's open for DLC, because I would definitely buy.

Some of the things in this presentation were pretty hilarious. The slow-mo of that guy talking about his favourite kart designs was brilliant, but they should have got Jeremy Clarkson to voice over it with his dodgy jokes. That would have been perfect.

 
SirLink is offline. SirLink 30.04.2014#3

Azuardo said:
That dirty Rosie's been whoring out. They're all at it. Then they force their kids to drive in nappies. Child abuse.

But seriously, the new characters are a disappointment really. I just wanted Dixie, and that's it. I hope the door's open for DLC, because I would definitely buy.

Some of the things in this presentation were pretty hilarious. The slow-mo of that guy talking about his favourite kart designs was brilliant, but they should have got Jeremy Clarkson to voice over it with his dodgy jokes. That would have been perfect.

One piece of info for you Az, Battle Mode is back to the original knock-out style with people who got killed being ghosts until one is left standing. Seems that separate battle stages got axed and it'll take place on certain regular tracks now. Odd choice, but I'm willing to give that a shot.

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Azuardo is offline. Azuardo 30.04.2014#4

SirLink said:
Azuardo said:
That dirty Rosie's been whoring out. They're all at it. Then they force their kids to drive in nappies. Child abuse.

But seriously, the new characters are a disappointment really. I just wanted Dixie, and that's it. I hope the door's open for DLC, because I would definitely buy.

Some of the things in this presentation were pretty hilarious. The slow-mo of that guy talking about his favourite kart designs was brilliant, but they should have got Jeremy Clarkson to voice over it with his dodgy jokes. That would have been perfect.

One piece of info for you Az, Battle Mode is back to the original knock-out style with people who got killed being ghosts until one is left standing. Seems that separate battle stages got axed and it'll take place on certain regular tracks now. Odd choice, but I'm willing to give that a shot.
That's fantastic news. Of the few things I wished for, that one really pleases me probably the most. Where did you find that out? But that's weird - they got rid of actual battle mode courses, and the balloon battles are on the race tracks? I don't understand. Do you race around in laps or can you just go around backwards with no punishment, or does Lakitu sit on my face with a big WRONG WAY sign?

 
SirLink is offline. SirLink 30.04.2014#5

Azuardo said:
SirLink said:
Azuardo said:
That dirty Rosie's been whoring out. They're all at it. Then they force their kids to drive in nappies. Child abuse.

But seriously, the new characters are a disappointment really. I just wanted Dixie, and that's it. I hope the door's open for DLC, because I would definitely buy.

Some of the things in this presentation were pretty hilarious. The slow-mo of that guy talking about his favourite kart designs was brilliant, but they should have got Jeremy Clarkson to voice over it with his dodgy jokes. That would have been perfect.

One piece of info for you Az, Battle Mode is back to the original knock-out style with people who got killed being ghosts until one is left standing. Seems that separate battle stages got axed and it'll take place on certain regular tracks now. Odd choice, but I'm willing to give that a shot.
That's fantastic news. Of the few things I wished for, that one really pleases me probably the most. Where did you find that out? But that's weird - they got rid of actual battle mode courses, and the balloon battles are on the race tracks? I don't understand. Do you race around in laps or can you just go around backwards with no punishment, or does Lakitu sit on my face with a big WRONG WAY sign?


 

 

See for yourself. I don't think all tracks will work for this, so it might just be 8-10 of them or something.

ACTUALLY, looking at lot closer it looks like the match ends when Bowser loses his last balloon, and they still count points? So it's not exactly like in MK64 but much better than the previous one which always went on for the entire time limit and had respawns.

( Edited 30.04.2014 14:42 by SirLink )

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Azuardo is offline. Azuardo 30.04.2014#6

What on earth. I don't understand why they've done that. So you gotta drive around waiting ages to come across someone? It probably works out shorter overall because you only get 3 balloons and you're out, but I don't understand why they've scrapped actual battle courses. It's like they've finally brought something good back, only to mess it up slightly. I say slightly because it might not be as bad as I think, but I just find it really weird. Unnecessary.

 
SirLink is offline. SirLink 30.04.2014#7

I've seen Luigi do a sharp turn at some point to give chase to someone else and for most tracks there'll probably be popular hot spots that are fairly open where it's easy to kill each other. Just a guess.

Definitely something we need to try for ourselves, hope there are some previews on this soon.

( Edited 30.04.2014 14:50 by SirLink )

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jb is offline. jb 30.04.2014#8

Hmm - very weird - wondering how they got their hands on that?

May need to chase Nintendo UK if there are final builds available. From what they told us, we weren't allowed to post 4 player footage - but this maybe clearly breaking some sort of embargo, not too sure as GXP are US from the looks of things.

Cubed3 Admin/Founder & Designer
 
SirLink is offline. SirLink 30.04.2014#9

- Battle Mode features new and existing courses re-engineered for this mode

That's from an info round-up on Nintendo Everything. Not sure what to believe right now, but this would make way more sense. Battle Mode always lacked a lot of stages compared to regular races, maybe this would be a way to bolster the variety a bit.[/color]


( Edited 30.04.2014 15:53 by SirLink )

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JoshSL is offline. JoshSL 30.04.2014#10

The final characters are hella disappointing. Apparently Nintendo are putting real emphasis on "female player characters" being a selling point, which is fantastic, but if an original character like Toadette was made for Double Dash I'm sure they could have been more creative than Baby Rosalina and Gold Peach.

To make matters worse, this also practically confirms that Diddy, Bowser Jr., Birdo and others are gone, and many of those guys have been with MK for ages now. Weird as heck.

Perhaps the reason there are so many baby characters is because they're easier to make character models for, I imagine all it took to make Baby Rosalina was to retool Baby Peach's model. Maybe they ran out of time making characters so stuffed it with "easy to make" ones like the metals and babies instead. :/

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Marzeee is offline. Marzeee 30.04.2014#11

Yeah, it boggles me when they have some amazing original characters, like Nabbit and they just go and put filler/clone characters in instead. Birdo, Diddy and Bowser Jr should definitely be in there, considering they've been in MK for a while.

( Edited 30.04.2014 19:49 by Marzy )

 
Phoenom is offline. Phoenom 01.05.2014#12

I'll be very surprised if there isn't some form of DLC for this game at some point. Mario Golf looks to be the testing ground for new character/new course packs.

 

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