This 36-foot track did work, but it also left zero options for course variation and additional real-life obstacles. In contrast to the more spacious living room, there was only a small perimeter around the two desks in this room where a track could fit. On the opposite end of the spectrum was the track I made in my admittedly large but extremely crowded with furniture bedroom. And when combined with all the in-game magic of Rainbow Road-style ring boosts and Piranha plant infested gates it was a thrill to drive through. I made it a Halloween-themed course with pumpkins, ghosts, candy, and plastic cups meaningfully placed throughout for a manageably chaotic challenge. It was fun to drive, though it wasn’t just the layout that left me beaming but all the extras I decorated it with. My favorite course was 80 feet long and had a figure-eight design that went from the living room to the kitchen, looped around the island, went behind the sofa, and finally cut behind the couch to close the loop. When pushing Mario Kart Live to its absolute limits, I was able to create a course that was 112 feet long – though some frame drops did occur since I had it weaving around my open living room and kitchen space as well as the adjacent hallway. I’m fortunate enough to have a pretty spacious communal area in my apartment which gave me a lot of options for setting up different tracks. These issues weren’t common enough to be a major concern, but when they did happen it served as a harsh reminder of the practical limitations of this otherwise impressive technology. Occasionally the framerate could drop while at long distances, and I had a few anomalies where the on-screen gameplay would halt and then skip ahead to where the real-life kart actually was. That said, most of the connection issues I had were limited to being too far from the Switch – or one time from having the course gates separated by walls, which Nintendo does not recommend doing for this very reason. The console and kart are connected through Wi-Fi, so if you have slow internet speeds you could run into problems. Nintendo recommends a room of 15 x 15 max and 10 x 12 for 150 CC speed with the kart never going more than five meters away from your Switch. It’s genuinely magical even before you set up your first real course.īringing a race track to life requires an ample amount of space and has some restrictions in order to maintain a good connection. This tutorial phase takes just a few moments, but I found myself taking my time with each step – not because I needed more driving practice, but because it was so freaking cool to zip Mario around my living room, through my kitchen, and under my sofa as my cat playfully followed this strange new device. All you have to do is point the kart’s camera toward a QR code on your screen, spend some time learning its controls, and set up the cardboard gates. Setting up Mario Kart Live for the first time is a delightfully simple process. It’s incredibly novel, though not always as smooth as that sounds. An augmented version of that camera feed is displayed on the Switch itself, overlaying 3D item boxes, opposing AI racers, and all the other things you might expect from a regular Mario Kart game. Each course is made by placing the four included cardboard gates (no more, no less) which the camera on the car reads as you go through each one in order, but any additional loops and turns you take along the way are entirely up to you. You use your Switch to control an actual RC car around tracks you set up in your own home, viewing the action through the car’s camera. Mario Kart Live is a wild hybrid mix of a traditional Mario Kart video game and a physical, remote-controlled toy. All too often, frustrating technical limitations can throw a banana peel into the works. The joy of driving around my living space from a worm’s-eye view while familiar Mario characters zoom by and Koopa Shells fly across the screen is refreshingly different – at least when everything is running smoothly. That’s what taking control of Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit’s augmented reality RC kart for the first time felt like. There are moments in some games that instantly bring a smile to my face, transporting me back to my childhood while the rest of the world melts into the background.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |