Mario Kart 8 Sees Lots Of New Tracks, Items & Other Features

It’s been no secret that the Wii U stumbled out of the gate. However, Nintendo looks to get the ball rolling once again when Mario Kart 8 races its way to stores next month. They want to make sure that the game becomes a killer app, with Nintendo announcing tons of new courses, items and other new things coming to Mario Kart 8.

First off is the new items. Using a Piranha Plant works similarly as in Super Mario 3D World; it eats up items coming towards your race cart. It’s a great way to prevent opponents up ahead from increasing their lead, as well as an excellent opportunity to take a chomp out the competition with an unfriendly Piranha bite placed right behind your racing foes. The second new item is a Boomerang Flower. Usable up to three times, racers can throw the item in an arch to stun multiple riders at once. These new items create a myriad of new racing strategies in Mario Kart 8.

A great addition to the racing game is the re-imagining of many classic Mario Kart stages. That’s right, 16 of the now 32 total courses available in Mario Kart 8 have been repurposed to play with modern control schemes. Some of them even include anti-gravity ramp sections to suit the new game’s driving sensibilities. Speaking of anti-gravity, spin boosts can now occur on these ramps in order to ram into opponents and gain speed. Nintendo looks to be tweaking all aspects of racing to change things up in their 8th iteration.

With new control support (including off-TV play), live orchestral music on certain tracks and more, Mario Kart 8 looks to be the definitive arcade racers for the Wii U console.

Mario Kart 8 comes out exclusively on the Wii U May 30th in North America. Check out the trailer below.

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