Mario Kart Arcade!

[OB1]

Weird!

http://www.gpara.com/news/05/02/news200502187502.htm

Found it on the GA boards.



Mario Kart Arcade GP
- 6 Worlds 24 courses
- Rewritable Card

It'll be revelead tomorrow at AOU, and it's being developed by Namco. 24 course... that's more than DD. Craziness! It better get ported to the GC! Perhaps that's one of the GC surprises that Reggie hinted would be shown at E3. Woo!

[Great Rumbler]

Babelfish translation:

ナムコ 2005 February 18th (the gold) from is done with Makuhari メッセ, in "AOU amusement EXPO 2005", ' title ' Mali occurring ト arcade GP ' for business of the マリオカート ' series of Nintendo Co. it exhibited. Using リライタブルカード, it can play with 6 worldwide 24 courses. When the location test is done in the next few days, is. Details convey chasing. As for the general open day "of AOU amusement EXPO 2005" 2005 February 19th (Saturday). As for the day ticket admission fee, adult junior high and high school students 1,000 Yen. Or more of the elementary school student and 60 years old becomes free.

That's pretty cool that Namco is making an arcade version of Mario Kart. I really hope they port it to the GC because there's absolutely no chance of me being able to play the arcade version. Apparently, the local arcade establishment decided to sever its ties with Namco and it replaced Tekken 3 with Revolution X, which says a lot about it.

[OB1]

Arcades are dead in the U.S. And DD is Nintendo's second-best-selling GC title, so I'm sure it'll get ported.

I hope.

[Great Rumbler]

As do I.

[OB1]

Same here.

[Great Rumbler]

So what happened to those other arcade games that Namco made? Like F-Zero?

[OB1]

What others?

Sega made F-Zero. All (or at least most) of the AX tracks are unlockable in GX.

[OB1]

Holy shit!



Pacman is playable and the karts are back to normal! Shine Get!!

[OB1]

Also if you pay close attention, there are little pictures of people with Mario characer hats/facial features on them. Looks like a camera will put your face in the game. Neat!

I can't believe we're getting another MK game so soon. That'll be two this year! Yet no new SSB...

[The Former DMiller]

Looks like there is a camera right above the screen in that red box. If it is recording during the race it could be used in some of the bigger arcades to show people's reactions during races.

[OB1]

Like I said. ;)

[OB1]

Haha!



http://www.namco.co.jp/pr/release/50/50-063.pdf

[A Black Falcon]

That's pretty cool...

So how do you port such a feature to the home consoles? :)

[EdenMaster]

Perhaps an Eye-Toy like peripheral for the Gamecube (or Revolution). However, such a feature seems pointless if you're sitting in the same room as a person playing the game. This would be a nice feature for, dare I say...online races?

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, it would...

Uh, so we'll get the game minus camera-head functionality. Better that than releasing an online game!

[OB1]

More screens!





Coins!



















WOW, that is gorgeous. Models and textures aren't really great, but overall it looks wonderful. And it's triforce hardware, so a GC port would be practically effortless.

[Great Rumbler]

Wow, that looks so awesome!

[OB1]

Doesn't it? I really hope we get a US GC port this year. Hopefully it'll be like F-Zero AX/GX and the releases will be simultaneous.

[Great Rumbler]

That would be cool.

[Great Rumbler]

Sega and Nintendo knocked our socks off with F-Zero AX, the Triforce arcade version of F-Zero GX for the GameCube. The Triforce arcade hardware was co-developed by Namco as well, and we now know what they've been cooking up for the arcades. Mario Kart Arcade GP promises to bring the fast and furious action that we all loved with Mario Kart on the home consoles. Here's all that we know about the game.

With the move to arcades, gameplay isn't limited to a controller anymore. The cabinet features a steering wheel, gas and brake pedals, and the all-important item launcher button mounted on the steering wheel. The basic karting control is about the same as it was in the SNES days, wherein hitting both the gas and the brake at the same time will cause the kart to hop into the air, and turning while airborne will start a powerslide, which increases speeds through turns. The weapon system isn't as simple as hitting the button and letting rip, since Arcade GP requires that the player actually aims where they want to launch weapons with on-screen crosshairs. Homing items must get a lock with these crosshairs before a hit is guaranteed, which means aiming skills will be just as important as driving skills.

Another feature the cabinet will have is a camera mounted directly in front of the player. Namco's NamCam2 system takes a picture of whomever sits in the driver's seat, then adds stickers or decals on top of it to resemble the character that player picked. This will help pick out who is who, especially since up to four players can all select the same character if they want, a Mario Kart first. As Namco is developing the game for the arcades, they've decided to throw in a few of their own characters into the Mario Kart world. Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man and Blinky the ghost will be selectable characters, along with eight of Nintendo's usual suspects, Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, Yoshi, Bowser, Donkey Kong and Wario. It's currently unknown if there are any secret characters buried inside, but Namco is notorious for having time-released goodies in their arcade games, so maybe there will be a few surprises.

Right now, 24 tracks are confirmed to be in the game, and many have selectable weather conditions. Players can select from one of six cups, each with four tracks a piece: The Mario Cup, the Koopa Cup, the DK Cup, the Wario Cup, the Rainbow Cup, and Namco's Pac-Man cup. Tracks are designed to be fast, and races are long enough for those who fall behind to catch up with solid driving and useful items. In fact, Namco has created what they call the "Rubber Band System," where players that do fall behind will find it easier to get back to the front, making sure the racing action is close all the way through. The courses will be littered with item boxes, coins to increase top speed (as in Super Mario Kart), and all the junk the other players will throw onto the track in an attempt to slow you down.

The most radical addition to Mario Kart Arcade GP are the new items you can acquire via the item boxes. Over 100(!) wacky and wild Namco creations can eventually be earned and then used during the races. In addition to the regular koopa shells, banana peels and Super Stars we've been seeing for years, new items include a tornado that clears out everything in its path, marbles and oil slicks that can be used to spin out those behind, and some sort of club melee weapon, which just beats the crap out of anyone that gets close to you. Other weapons will slow down the target with a purple haze, or effect your camera view with smoke bombs or a pie that splatters all over the camera. Not all of the items are going to be available from the start, however.

The game uses a magnetic card system to save data, similar to the cards dispensed by F-Zero AX. The cards track player records, times, coins, and most importantly, items unlocked. As you progress through the game and improve, more and more items will be available to the player, but still not all at the same time. Before every race, a slot machine of sorts randomly selects three items from your unlocked list, and then those items will be the ones you can use during the course of the next race. Since you really don't know which items you'll have access to until just before the start of the race, you might need to adjust your driving tactics based on the tools you've got. Driving through item boxes will still get you something random from your available set of items.

With the game running on the Triforce hardware, things look great. Gameplay is reported to be fast at all times, even in some of the tracks with a lot of stuff going on in the background. All the characters look really good, especially since there's only one of them per kart, rather than two in Double Dash, meaning more detail can be put into one driver. Since arcade monitors are high-resolution, everything in general will look better than any other Mario Kart game ever.

Mario Kart Arcade GP was just announced for Japanese arcades this weekend at the Arcade Operator's Union show in Japan, so there hasn't been any official word yet that the game will be available in North America or elsewhere. Considering that Nintendo had planned from the beginning to get F-Zero AX out here to coincide with the GameCube version of F-Zero, it wouldn't be too hard to imagine a U.S. release for the arcade version of Kart to come about. This does bring up another question, though: Since there was a home-arcade tie between the F-Zero versions, does this arcade release of Mario Kart mean that there's a new Mario Kart home game coming soon? We'll only know the real truth of it all at E3, where an official English reveal of the game will probably be made.

Even if we get a port of it on the GC, it won't be nearly as cool as playing the arcade version.

http://www.planetgamecube.com/previews.c...ile&id=345

[A Black Falcon]

Sounds good... yeah, a home port wouldn't be as cool. It never is for titles like racing games with special arcade machines. But it's better than nothing...

[OB1]

F-Zero GX pales in comparison to the arcade experience, too, but saying that it's dull because of that comparison is like saying that The Lord of the Rings is a bad movie simply because it cannot compare to Casablanca. It's good in its own right! And with a steering wheel it'll be even better.

[Great Rumbler]

Yeah, it's good in its right, but it'll never be quite like it would be playing the arcade version, which was my point. They better hurry up and port it soon.

[A Black Falcon]

Steering wheel? F-Zero with a wheel seems like it'd be odd... car/simulation racers (on PC at least) are designed for those, but arcadish ones often actually can be worse with them, or at least not better than they are with mini-joysticks... it can work in the arcade with the whole housing and all, but at home? I don't know if it'd work as well as a standard gamepad. Perhaps, I've never tried it with home racing games.

[OB1]

F-Zero AX was made with a steering wheel in mind.

[Dark Jaguar]

Yeah, if the game is designed with that control setup in mind they should be able to get it working well enough. I would imagine you would only need to turn the wheel very slightly to get good response. I'd hate to throw out my shoulder playing the game :D.

Mario Kart Arcade is a great idea. With these arcade translations, they should be bringing another game with a genre meant for arcade use there. Bring Super Smash Bros AC! Now that would be fun.

[A Black Falcon]

F-Zero AX was made with a steering wheel in mind.

Maybe so, but are such racing games actually better played with wheels? I'm not so sure. Oh, I'm sure it controls fine with a wheel. But better than it does with a mini-stick? It seems like it'd be harder to do some of the things you have to do in an arcadish racing game with a wheel...

[OB1]

You do realize that what you're debating is precisely the point I had, right? Regarding Mario Kart Arcade. MK was made for the console, even if it isn't. Unless they change it so dramatically that it plays nothing like MK or something.

[Great Rumbler]

I bet games like F-Zero and Wipeout would probably control pretty good with a joystick.

[A Black Falcon]

I've played enough arcade racing games, and home-console racing games, that I know what I'm talking about... sure, I haven't played F-Zero in the arcade, but I said so, and I've played quite a few arcade racing games in arcades.

[OB1]

....


Did you read my post?

[Dark Jaguar]

Yeah I'll bet it won't control any better :D.

Ya know, there is an active goal to replace steering wheels in real cars with a joystick mounted where the gear shifter is sometimes placed, that is between the seats. The goal is safety, in two ways. One, the steering wheel is no longer the first thing your poor head needs to worry about hitting. It'll make it easier to design air bags and not as dangerous when the air bag fais. Two, control. By not needing to do full rotations to return to a central position, turning can occur far faster, meaning a lot less accidents. Since steering systems are very often not directly controlled by the wheel but rathe electronically controlled by it anyway, this won't be much of a departure. Also, most of the new drivers will be able to easily adapt for obvious reasons. The main issue is when power steering fails, what form of direct control will be there that one can use?

[A Black Falcon]

....


Did you read my post?

I wasn't just talking about Mario Kart Arcade, though, so why does that really matter?

Mario Kart could possibly work with a wheel, yes... I was just saying that I'm not so sure that you could be as good with Mario Kart on wheel as you can on gamepad. And I'm not.

[Great Rumbler]

Loss of power-steering is definitely something that they would have address with a system like that. It's an interesting idea, and it does have some merits, but one thing I can think of that would be a downside is comfort. Do you really want to have you hand stretched out into the middle of the car for possibly hours on end? Also, what about us southpaws?

[Darunia]

Ah man---another Mario Kart! That's great! The only multiplayer game that every got off the ground in my GC library. IT BETTER be ported all right.

[Dark Jaguar]

I don't think any stretching would really be required. Also, what the heck is a south paw? As in a lefty? Weird, I thought people from the south actually punished people for BEING left handed... Lookit this way, people already use their right hand all the time driving anyway, for stuff... Adapting is easy enough with practice. I don't see that as being a big deal. I think comfort isn't so much an issue.

Ya know though, manuel control would be possible I think with such a system. All it would take would be a system that converted the short distance movement into large distance turning. That's already done with the steering wheel, so it's doable.

[OB1]

I drive with my left hand.

[EdenMaster]

I drive with my left hand.

Me too. Normally I use my right hand for my CD player remote, eating, or flipping off idiots who cut me off :)

[Great Rumbler]

Also, what the heck is a south paw? As in a lefty?

Yes, southpaw means left-handed.

[Dark Jaguar]

What are you from mutant land? What odd slang...

Aren't you supposed to drive with like... both hands?

Anyway, if the joystick was in the middle, your car would be internationally compatible! :D

[OB1]

The only time I've heard the term southpaw was in Halo, which is the control scheme for "lefties". That's what I always use for FPSs even though I'm not left-handed. It's how I played Turok and GE/PD as well.

[Dark Jaguar]

Yeah that's right!

Anyway, yeah I too play with that camera on the left and movement on the right setup (that's what that one was, right?), because that's the only way to play GE/PD (what with aiming using the c buttons being... well let's just say not a wise idea). I played Halo the same way for a while, but when I realized the movement on the left and camera on the right setup was becoming so common, I decided to simply adapt so that when the time came some really good FPS sadly lacked a "reverse" mode, I would be ready. So, yeah I play current gen FPS games "northpaw". Makes it a little awkward to go back to my N64 FPS games though :D.

[Great Rumbler]

What are you from mutant land? What odd slang...

It's a boxing term, I think.

[Dark Jaguar]

That doesn't explain it at all...

What does south have to do with it?

[OB1]

Well... maybe... maybe people in Oklahoma usually face west or something, so their left hand would be facing south....

...


I've got nuthin'.

[Great Rumbler]

Well, why do they call it the "right" hand? It's wrong too sometimes, you know.

And anyway it's not an Oklahoma term, it is in fact a term used just about everywhere in the world? Don't believe me? Check out this site:

Japan Southpaw Club

In a rule book of baseball, it said the ideal direction of the line from the home base to pitcher's plate through second base goes to runs north or north-east. If the baseball field were made up in this way, first base faced to the south. So a left-handed pitcher's hand was also placed in the southern part of the field. Therefore left-handed pitchers were called "southpaws".

So actually it's a baseball term.

[Dark Jaguar]

I.... guess? Why would compass direction matter in making a baseball field?

And... they don't mean right as in "correct" they mean right as in the direction right....

[A Black Falcon]

Right, I was thinking 'southpaw, yeah, that's a left-hander of course, isn't that a common term?'... but now that you mention it I guess it is a baseball term. Which is why I know the term well. :)

I.... guess? Why would compass direction matter in making a baseball field?

Sun in people's eyes (when it's setting) and shadows, I'm sure.

[Great Rumbler]

And... they don't mean right as in "correct" they mean right as in the direction right.

It's part all of the opressions of the lefties, that's what that is. Also the Latin word "sinistra" [from which sinister is derived] means left, and the French word "gauche", meaning left, means "awkward or clumsy" in English. Yeah, I bet you didn't know that did you?! I want my equal rights!!

By the way, here's a list of famous lefties:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fam...ded_people

[A Black Falcon]

http://www.gamespot.com/arcade/driving/m...lashtop_bg

The items, of course, can come in handy when you're falling behind in the race, but Mario Kart Arcade GP has its own unique system to keep the race burning. Although it's really not apparent when you're actually playing the game, Mario Kart Arcade GP features a system called "rubber band," which speeds you up if you're trailing behind in the race. Your car actually becomes faster depending on how far behind the competition you are. The rubber band system gets its name because it allows you to bounce into the front of the race, which in effect will make your opponents fall to the back and then accelerate to the front again, very much like what happens with an elastic band.

Rubber band AI... ick. Rubber-band AI is an old "feature" of many racing games... games like Screamer II. It means that yes, you'll never fall too far behind, so you can always catch up... but you'll also never build up a big lead, so one mistake and you've lost several places. All the time. Isn't that great?

Rubber-band AI, I'd say, is what racing games have when they can't think of a better way to do their AI.