Ad disclosure: This product was sent to us free of charge for the purpose of this review, and represents our honest opinion of the product.
Product: Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit
Price: £99.99
Age Range: 6 years+
Manufacturer’s Description: Turn your home into a race track with Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit, a brand new way to experience Mario Kart on Nintendo Switch! Drive a kart in the real world using familiar Mario Kart controls and see the action from your kart’s on-board camera displayed on your Nintendo Switch or TV screen. Watch as your home is transformed into ocean depths, a sandy desert and more from the world of Mario Kart!
Rating: (5/5 stars) Review: As a household full of huge Nintendo Switch & Mario fans, this has probably been our favourite review of the year – Nintendo sent us the new Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit to try out, and we have all been really enjoying it! Inside the box, you get Mario in his Kart, a USB-C charging cable, four gates, and two arrow markers, along with a simple getting started guide which tells you what to search for to download the game from the Nintendo eShop on your Switch. Each of the cardboard gates unfolds to a decent size, with flaps of cardboard that slot into place to keep the legs stiff. Each of the gates is numbered with retro Mario Kart art on each side. The front of the gates has the number, and on the back it has different illustrations – the number of which match the number of the gate. Once you have the game installed, the first step is connecting your kart, which may prompt a firmware update before you can begin setup. It was a first to me, updating the firmware on an actual real life Mario Kart vehicle! The game guides you through everything you need to know to set up the gates & your course. They recommend during setup that you weigh down the gates with some heavy books and it definitely helps to do this as otherwise when Mario crashes into them they can shift across the floor. To set up your course, you arrange the four gates in order around your floor, and then Mario, beginning in a particular point in front of gate one, ‘paints’ a course with his kart, that you can then confirm or re-do. You can change your course whenever you want between races, and it’s fun to mix it up a bit. As you progress through the game, you can unlock higher speeds and different karts and outfits for in-game Mario, which make it fun to change his look on-screen. Mario races against virtual opponents in the game, but you can also get a Luigi set and play against a friend – a second Switch is required for two player gaming… but that wouldn’t be a big deal in this house as we are a two Switch household already! It is pretty tempting to add Luigi to our Christmas list. Up to four players can play together, as long as they all have a kart, Switch, and the game installed. Just like normal Mario Kart, you can play Grand Prix tournaments with different themed courses. In these races, the gates appear on screen with extra decorations to match the theme, and various effects are applied to the whole game. This is the certainly the best application of Augmented Reality – or Mixed Reality – technology that we’ve had hands on experience with. As in all Mario Kart games, there are coins to collect and special items hidden in question blocks which affect your game – and these affect your kart in reality, too. A mushroom gives the kart a burst of speed, and items that your opponents use on you can send you off course; it’s really clever. All four of us have spent time playing the game, and while Lydia & Georgie’s steering in Mario Kart has always left a lot to be desired, they do really enjoy taking control of Mario and his real life kart as it whizzes around the room, crashing all over the place. Lydia celebrates if she makes it all the way around a lap without bashing into something, so I’m happy to report that Mario’s kart is very crash proof. So what are our thoughts on the game? I have to admit, when we first saw the trailer for it on the Nintendo Direct, we were sceptical about how well it would work in a UK home. We have smaller rooms, and carpeted floors, unlike the hard floored expansive rooms featured in the promotional material. I’m happy to say, we were super impressed. The kart had no problems at all moving around on our carpeted living room, and even goes on and off our rug easily. Our living room is pretty small and filled with furniture, especially since we set up my new workspace, but we easily set up several different layouts of courses, although a pretty simple loop or figure of 8 works best. We can also set up courses to race down the hallway and back to make longer courses. We are probably pretty limited to the slower speeds because of our small-ish courses, but as casual gamers – especially the kids – this isn’t an issue for us. We are looking forward to being able to take it round to our friend’s house with their more open plan layout for some racing, though! It would be great fun for an office games night too, in a post-covid world. Having the real life aspect of the game is a huge draw for the kids. They don’t get frustrated with it nearly as quickly as the Mario Kart 8 game on the Switch, and they love to help each other out with setting up courses, fetching a soft toy audience, and even the odd rescue when Lydia accidentally jams Mario under the sofa. The battery on the kart lasts a fairly good amount of play time, and charges via USB-C cable which you can plug into your dock, just like a pro controller. The USB-C port is hidden behind a small flap on the side of the kart, and the girls are very entertained that they charge up Mario’s kart just like Daddy charges up our new electric car! Although we wish we had a bit more space to play, we have been really enjoying the game, and it definitely helps motivate the girls to tidy up their toys in the living room so they have a clear racetrack to race around, which I am definitely counting as a bonus. While £99.99 seems like a lot of money for a game, in reality you are paying for a full first party Nintendo Switch game (which retail generally at £49.99), plus a pretty advanced piece of tech in the form of the kart, and the four gates & arrow markers. We give Mario Kart 5 stars.
