Review Information
Game Reviewed Mario Kart: Speed Strife, by DJ Coco
Review Author RoundCircleandSphere314628
Created Feb 17 2016, 2:53 AM

General Commentary and Game Overview
If you can look past the small amount of flash, you'll find this just has no substance. It is not utter crap like most indie 3d racing gamers, but it's nothing great either. It seems to ride the wave of Mario nostalgia like a leech, offering nothing valuable of it's own. The game suffers from several bad design elements, such as bad camera, poor driving mechanics, and to be honest it just lacks soul. It "looks" like Mario, but it misses everything that made Mario great. It lacks that special element.
 
Pros The graphics are bright, and the overall presentation is coherent and aesthetically harmonious.
 
Cons All in all it feels like a lazy, unpolished effort from a developer. It lacks what game developers call "juice" - it's just not fundamentally fun to play. The turning mechanics are absolutely subpar, and you drift all over the place. It lacks special effects such as dirt or tire effects and the lighting on the karts is horrendous unibright. The lag is due to lazy coding, not Game Maker, this was programmed in Game Maker Studio which is a fairly powerful 3d rendering engine, as compared to Game Maker 8 which is the older and laggier version. The sound effects are simply awfully mixed and disturb my eardrums. The tracks are much too narrow and the obstacles are impossible to avoid. Virtually no testing was apparently done on this game. The powerups are unsatisfying as well, you can't even smash people after a lightning.
 
Impressions
Gameplay
3 / 10
The overall game is lazy and not satisfying to play. It feels chorelike at times. On top of this there are severe lag issues even at it's lowest quality setting, 15 fps.
 
Graphics
6 / 10
The graphics are good but the karts are unibright and for this reason are simultaneously pleasing yet not pleasing to look at.
 
Sound
2 / 10
The sound is poorly mixed. The item noise hurts my ears. The music is alright but simply ripped from other mario games. The car sounds are lazy and not well made, half of the time they do not even stream and the cars are completely silent, giving them a floating feathery vibe, which detracts from the viscerality of the game.
 
Replay
8 / 10
Strange as it sounds this game has some replayability. Because you cannot stomach the game on the first round you may come back to it again and again until finally you can stomach it's mediocrity long enough to beat it.
 
Final Words
3 / 10
If you aren't blindsided by it's Mario sticker you'll find this game to be as hollow as your soul. "Mario Kart - Speed Strife" - but mostly the strife.

Comments
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TheTwelfthRocket
Feb 18 2016, 11:07 PM
Quote (Review)
All in all it feels like a lazy [...] effort from a developer

I'm pretty sure DJ Coco put effort into this, didn't he/she/whatever DJ Coco may be?
 
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RoundCircleandSphere314628
Feb 20 2016, 9:34 PM
Quote (TheTwelthRocket on Feb 18 2016, 11:07 PM)
I'm pretty sure DJ Coco put effort into this, didn't he/she/whatever DJ Coco may be?

All game devs put effort into their games.

The defining factor, is do they take it all the way or give up and lose interest before it's finished?

This game, is quite simply, half the way there, a diamond mostly surrounded with coal.
 
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Friendly Dictator
Feb 24 2016, 8:47 PM
geez dude that's a bit harsh
 
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TheTwelfthRocket
Mar 1 2016, 2:28 AM
Quote (RoundCircleandSphere314628 on Feb 20 2016, 3:34 PM)
All game devs put effort into their games


*coughing*
 
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1Little_Danny
Mar 8 2018, 1:14 PM
Quote (TheTwelfthRocket on Feb 29 2016, 9:28 PM)
*coughing*

Why are you "coughing"?
 
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Clobbah
Jul 1 2018, 2:42 PM
Quote (Friendly Dictator on Feb 24 2016, 8:47 PM)
geez dude that's a bit harsh

Yo my man have you seen Jack-Of-All Games' reviews? If you think this is harsh then oh boy. There are harsher people on here.
 
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