We have entered into a rather grim part of the year…that being the ever lamentable dregs of Joyless January, which I argue always brings forth the vibe of an emotionally bankrupt black hole that no joy can escape from within the spacetime continuum.

Double your pleasure…

In an ill conceived attempt in thinking I can regain control of my life, I had mistakenly assumed I could finally wrap up my thoughts on Mario Kart World (MKW), and race off into the sunset. This was wrong of me to assume was possible, and I was mistaken on a deeply regrettable level that such a thing was going to occur unabated. As is the case with my regular “midweek” schedule, spare time has been little to speak of, and exhaustion continues to rear its ugly head once more, so I must put forth the absurdist notion of this being a part 2 to my originally intended one part epilogue of final thoughts involving MKW, so let’s see what kind of blood we may yet squeeze from this rock this night.

Gone are the days where Nintendo leads the pack with a tremendous amount of innovation, though their lasting legacy within the gaming realm has been so prolific, a lot of the precedent they set are still seen reflected today by others within the realm. I suppose one could argue that the influx of “portable PC’s” is chasing that Switch drip on some level, but I feel as if it would be a stretch to accredit such an occurrence without admitting extreme leniency in terms of a monkey see, monkey do, as the kind of people who would want a Switch wouldn’t necessarily be the same crowd who would be excited for a Steam Deck, a ROG Ally, or a Legion, as the demographics don’t match up in so many ways, even if one of the largest key factors is price. Though, I do find it interesting now that I think about it, that more of those companies do not offer a proper “low end” version of their beefed up portable PC offerings, as to my point with the Switch, the market is definitely there, the finances involved just aren’t. It ultimately doesn’t matter what kind of games or features the Ally or Steam Deck have: there isn’t a spare $800-$1000 to throw casually at such a device, so the negotiation process ends right about there for most folk.

I guess that turned into more of an aside about tertiary hardware, as the further into that rabbit hole I got, the more apparent it was I had no good connecting point to continue waxing philosophical about MKW, so we will abandon that line of thought hence forth. I should have simply said: Nintendo doesn’t “call all of the shots” within the gaming realm, and that’s because they are unable to hold such a monopoly of standard on either ideas or ahead of the curve technology like they once did, which is for the best, as anyone company who does do that, really does fuck up the market for everyone else involved, while simultaneously getting too arrogant and complacent themselves. This address is in reference to MKW’s “big”novelty, which is Knockout Tour, which is essentially as close as we will get to seeing Nintendo chase the Battle Royal trend that PUBG started oh so long ago, and the concept that Fortnite then claimed for its own, and did so while laughing all the way to the bank there after.

Knockout Tour is appropriately named, and even aside from my already made reference to the Battle Royale style of play, it is fairly straight forward of how the mode goes down. Using the mindfully crafted open world map design, that has all of the games tracks physically located in approximation of each other, everyone races through each track, one after another, while the bottom portion of the remaining players finishing in low places get knocked out every leg of the race. I think it’s worth mentioning that overall, the mode has been met with approval and positive reactions overall, though I am not necessarily one of the voices lauding the mode. Very much in the same “vibealicious” way I referred to the course designs of MKW as “too wide” for their own good, arguably stripping away greater tendencies for tighter design, and therefore not encouraging better time trialing standards of technical gusto along with it, I found Knockout Tour to be “too long” to be of serious interest, or at least, a feeling of tedium has washed over me in my many times engaging with the mode, as it just feels like there is “too much race” to be of interest. When one considers that with Knockout Tour in mind, a lot of the time, it feels like the final results boil down to the last ten seconds anyway, what was the point of the first ten minutes?

Ironically, and in reference to “too long”, it reminds me of the “ultimate grand prix” (I can’t remember a more official name for the life of me at the moment) from MK: Double Dash on the ‘Cube, where you raced on every course in the game, back to back, in a iron man test of willpower. The irony I mentioned earlier, is that this mode obviously took quite a long time to finish, with it being 16 courses in a row, so closer to one continuous hour to complete. However, we come full circle in the field of absurdity, as that mode is so absurdly long, it comes back around to me as being interesting, but this could be due to the notion one does not just commit to it willy-nilly, and therefore represented a once in a blue moon kind of affair. I’m surprised we never saw such a mode again, as I feel as if it represents a fairly easy value proposition for all involved, but Nintendo is going to Nintendo.

I guess my overall point, albeit a surprisingly shallow one, is that I don’t mind Nintendo needing to bow its head in modesty in chasing a trend someone else made popular, but in doing so with Knockout Tour, does very little to light my Mario Kart soul on fire, which may be one of the larger contributing factors as to why I am so much more luke warn on the title then so many others. I also posit people regularly mindlessly consume their media, and MKW just represents one more hedonistic helping of existential distraction, with no ask of cognitive ability required to participate, so it leaves me with little surprise people just uncritically engage in the game, not a single thought of dissent involved. As long as they’re happy, I suppose.

Hmm…I feel as if I was just warming up to a much more interesting insight, but alas, I am out of time once again. Till next time.

-Pashford