[ad_1]
Supposedly, “Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit” is a toy that transforms your home into racetracks enhanced with augmented reality. At least that’s its stated purpose.
But really, after half a year of staying home 24/7, the Nintendo Switch accessory “Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit” has a power that I don’t think can be overstated. My 500-square-foot apartment began to feel crippling claustrophobia a long time ago, but it’s finally been reimagined. As a remote-controlled mini Mario can say when zooming around a bend in my kitchen, “Ya-hoo!”
Simply launching the game, even before its augmented reality capabilities are used, will result in a sense of wonder. Where there were metal-legged bar stools, now there are towering chrome skyscrapers that hint at a towering cityscape. My wooden kitchen cabinets have become a quaint neighborhood full of cozy chalets and parking spots.
Where once there was a storage area under the bed, now there are dark caverns with dead ends. A close-up view of a box spring reveals catacomb-worthy etchings seen above Mario, his perspective of my once-ordinary apartment now captured through a camera on a toy car and streamed to my Switch.
What ancient civilization attracted these constellation-like figures on this wood and mesh? And wait, is that a cobweb? You better back off.
For me, these gated communities are separated by exactly two steps, or just a turn of my head and a squat. The game inspires these imagined scenarios simply with a change of point of view. Save most of your AR enhancements for actual racing, and that’s when things get crazy.
“Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit” is also a killer cat toy.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
Underwater sights, rainbow tracks, even an old video game background appear as digital overlays in my little house once the “Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit” races begin. An icy racetrack has my kart constantly colliding with frozen sculptures, each of which slows me down and veers me slightly off the track. In an effort to avoid one, I over-fit and a wheel gets stuck on the floor pedal of a garbage can. When you’re a couple of inches tall, your home is filled with a whole new level of danger.
But I loved “Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit” even before it unleashed all its tricks. My way from the sofa to the bedroom consists of four steps. However, when racing, this little plastic kart with a Mario figure must embark on a long, winding journey filled with virtual challenges and gear, as scale changes and some smart and surprisingly responsive uses of augmented reality They have transformed my space into something from another world.
When running, Mario’s journey can be dangerous. Watch out for those giant magnets, piranha plants, or chewing balls and chains. And while I’m still delighted that driving my kart into virtual impediments has a real effect on slowing or stopping it, this lush toy is also a reminder that our world, our home, is a container for many other universes. We just needed a change of perspective.
A look at how “Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit” transforms the look of my apartment.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
This is a great holiday season for video game players. In the coming weeks we will have new consoles from Sony and Microsoft, each costing $ 500 and each seems impossible to find for quite some time. They will undoubtedly continue to improve the way we interact with digital worlds. But I’m in love with “Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit” because it has the exact opposite ambition, and I’d say it’s even more powerful: to reimagine the current one.
Augmented reality, along with virtual reality, has been teased as “the next big thing” for several years, with the two hype cycles depending on the tech conference and the year. However, since the 2016 release of the mobile hit “Pokémon Go,” we’ve been in tune with the appeal of AR: Through our phones we were able to see a universe full of creatures materialize. In the gaming space, however, nothing has matched the success of “Pokémon Go.”
My theory: We know that there’s actually nothing there, and the novelty of seeing something appear when it doesn’t have environmental interactions wears off pretty quickly, especially when there’s no story, or a brand as powerful as “Pokémon,” that matches. It’s no wonder that attention, at least when it comes to non-educational uses of AR, has recently turned to theme parks. Had the pandemic not intervened this year, we would have had the opportunity to travel to Universal Studios Japan for a real “Mario Kart” inspired ride, one that many suspect will involve some use of AR.
The view through the screen of “Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit”.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
My races in “Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit” are interrupted frequently.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
We won’t know until next year, when Universal’s Super Nintendo World is expected to open, if rumors and leaks are represented on the actual ride. But my first thought while playing “Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit” is that it feels like a take-home toy from a theme park as much as an add-on to my Switch.
Not only does it work, but it solves the challenge of virtual creations that interact and change with an element that exists in our physical world, in this case the kart. In short, “Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit” is an accessible and easy-to-play product that thrives outside of the tech demo space to argue that augmented reality has gaming applications that extend far beyond holding our phone and looking at a camera. virtual image.
But it is not cheap.
At $ 100 a game, you get a car, four doors, and two racing signs. All of them are digitally transformed when the races start (the nondescript black and white cardboard arrows turn into colored digital directional signs). You can compete with up to four players, but you will need four sets, and four Nintendo Switch consoles, to do so. Families with two or more young children may feel the creak more than someone living alone with a cat (hand raised), but I believe that a game offers opportunities for creativity beyond timed racing competitions.
It is up to you, for example, to design the field, which should avoid carpeted spaces. My kart had no problem running from living room to kitchen to bedroom to bathroom and back, maintaining a connection throughout a concrete-walled apartment in downtown Los Angeles. But even as a solo player I had fun challenging myself with winding tracks through narrow hallways, under shelves, and adding my own set of custom challenges and power-ups.
The little kart handles better than I expected, although not perfectly. But the “Mario Kart” games are not designed to be simulations, so the fact that a windy meadow course causes my cart to constantly turn left and right adds just the right amount of chaos.
Making sharp turns will require the use of drift. I create a figure eight around an air purifier and cat fountain (sorry, waterfall!), And without hitting the drift button, my kart always heads straight for the closet. However, using drift, Mario manages the curves and then does a little virtual wheelie (the kart is rendered digitally on the Switch’s screen, giving Mario a series of cartoonish reactions, including sleeping if I leave the Switch. down).
“Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit” uses augmented reality technology to change our perspectives.
(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)
It should be noted that my kart has taken a good beating in the last week and a half and doesn’t have a scratch on it. The real kart, despite the speed we specify for the race, moves relatively slowly. However, seen through the screen, Mario seems incredibly fast. This can create a mental disconnect if you try to see both the kart in real life and the kart on the Switch screen.
The biggest disappointment is that Nintendo doesn’t allow players to take screenshots of the game. While one danger of augmented reality games is that people will use them to take less than flattering IP photos, a key appeal of these games is capturing the characters we love in the environments we live in. To deprive fans of this feature, one that is likely to be of special interest to those who have pets, is a mistake. Nintendo, as part of its reviewer’s deal, also banned the media from taking close-up shots of the screen, hence the photos awkwardly framed in this story that don’t really do the game justice.
Still, “Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit” is a welcome addition to my home. Stuck in my apartment with a myriad of video games, Zoom calls, digital experiences, and online conferencing, I am absolutely exhausted when it comes to staring at a screen and pretending to be participating in real social activity. What I need is entertainment that allows my home to feel like something and a completely different place. Like a highway with a rainbow.
‘Mario Kart Live: Home Cicuit’
[ad_2]
