Mario Kart 8 Reviews

Mario Kart 8 is ranked in the 98th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
8.8 / 10.0
May 14, 2014

Mario Kart 8 won't change your mind if you're against the series' basic conceptual design, of course, but for everyone on the fence who just wants a fun, skill-weighted, multiplayer-centric party racer, this is truly as good as it gets. The balance of luck and skill is very well done overall, and the selection of available features, items, and gameplay elements is the best the series has had to offer yet—not to mention the excellent track design. It's safe to say that this is the best Mario Kart since the SNES days, and that's a pretty heavy statement.

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GameSpot
Top Critic
8 / 10
May 14, 2014

Mario Kart 8 shifts its focus from chaotic weapons to precise driving, and that makes this one of the most rewarding entries in the series.

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10 / 10
May 14, 2014

Video game players are familiar with the law of diminishing returns. Even as new entries in a series tirelessly improve upon their predecessors, our interest nevertheless wanes; with games, improved is somehow less exciting than new. Mario Kart 8 is a rare thing, then: the best entry in a series and the most exciting yet.

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May 14, 2014

The core is the same as ever, but this is kart racing at its finest.

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9 / 10
May 14, 2014

It may just be more Mario Kart, but that continues to be no bad thing.

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9 / 10
May 14, 2014

The best Mario Kart has ever been, with a near perfect blend of features and frequently astonishing visuals – despite some unnecessary repetition in track settings.

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9 / 10.0
May 14, 2014

Mario Kart 8 doesn't mess with the formula much, but it left me smiling

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May 14, 2014

Excellent new courses and spectacular visuals go a long way toward negating the sense of over-familiarity that comes part and parcel with all things Mario Kart.

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GamesBeat
Top Critic
85 / 100
May 14, 2014

Mario Kart is typically the best racer for most people. That's no different with Mario Kart 8.

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9 / 10
May 14, 2014

In years to come the debates over the best Mario Kart games in the series will, inevitably, feature this as a contender.

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May 14, 2014

Mario Kart 8 is a conservative update, choosing to polish and refine rather than reinvent, but it's still as alluring a racer as it ever has been.

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8.6 / 10.0
May 14, 2014

The overall high quality of the game is so impressive that it doesn't really matter that much that the zero-gravity gimmick barely adds anything that's truly new. Next time around, though, Nintendo might need to come up with new tricks if it hopes to keep us coming back for more.

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77 / 100
May 14, 2014

Mario Kart 8 warrants another go.

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Cubed3
Top Critic
9 / 10
May 14, 2014

After two decades of racing, the Mushroom Kingdom crew have come together in a package that ticks a lot of positive boxes - tight controls, exceptional course designs, brilliant music and plenty of scope for high-octane online/local races and battles. Quite simply, Mario Kart 8 is absolutely sublime and the best overall installment in the series so far.

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May 14, 2014

You'd be hard pressed to argue against the potency and sheer joy of Mario Kart 8's racing and track design. Likely to be more contentious is its resolutely, almost stubbornly, simple structure in both single and multiplayer.

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9 / 10
May 14, 2014

Nintendo promised and delivered. Mario Kart 8 is the shiniest star in one of the shiniest series in the world of videogames. Perfectly fine-tuned gameplay, a leap in the right direction for the online component, a magnificent audio-visual pillar worthy of the Wii U and an immensely fun and absorbing experience, whether solo or multiplayer, making Mario Kart 8 an instant and timeless classic.

Review in Portuguese | Read full review

May 14, 2014

I've played enough Mario Kart in my life to know that this is the best version of the venerable kart-racer since the Nintendo 64 era.

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Liked-a-lot
May 15, 2014
Mario Kart 8 - Video Review (Wii U) video thumbnail
9 / 10.0
May 15, 2014

If there’s one thing to say about this title, it’s that Mario Kart 8 is the savior that the Wii U desperately needed. We’ve seen many key franchises release titles over the past year, but nothing comes close the amazing detail that Mario Kart 8 gives. From the characters, to the track, the full Nintendo experience is here, and it is glorious. Well done, Nintendo.

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9 / 10.0
May 15, 2014

Mario Kart is one of the things nintendo knows how to do best. This new chapter demonstrates this with obvious clarity, precisely because it is not content to revise the driving model here and there, to add some new power-ups and to improve the balance and the overall variety. Mario Kart 8, in addition to doing all this, pushes on the accelerator of design, proposing 32 tracks one more beautiful than the other.

Review in Italian | Read full review