This is the seventh Mario Kart game. Some people might expect the series to have gotten stale by this point, and it does actually have a bit of a bad reputation, but I think Mario Kart 7 is very good.

As usual, you start off with eight characters, this time it’s: Mairo, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, Toad, Yoshi, Koopa Troopa and Donkey Kong. There are then nine unlockable characters, including four who had never appeared in any capacity before. I like the choice of characters in some ways, because there are fun and unusual choices in there, but on the other hand there are obvious options like Diddy Kong and Waluigi who are absent.

What I’m especially pleased with is the number of great tracks in Mario Kart 7. There’s a new track based on Donkey Kong Country Returns, two tracks on Wuhu Island (from the Wii series games), one called Wario Shipyard (which actually seems to draw from Wario Land games a little), Rosalina’s Ice World (a snowy, alien planet) and other great new tracks too. Then you’ve also got some really good returning tracks, like Kalamari Desert (from Mario Kart 64), the original Rainbow Road (from Super Mario Kart) and Airship Fortress (from Mario Kart DS.) It honestly has one of the best track selections in the series.

The unique selling point of the game is the fact that the karts can now go underwater in certain areas and sprout a glider and fly at times too. This is a fun little addition which helps to add more variety to the tracks, but it’s a bit of a minor thing. You are also given the option to race against other players ghosts with the help of StreetPass functionality, which is a good way to improve replayability. The sad thing is, that this game is a bit of a step down from Mario Kart Wii (because it has fewer characters, no 12-player races and no bikes) which I think causes people to judge it unfairly, but I still found it very enjoyable. I spent quite a large number of hours playing the game online an it’s still something I dip into from time to time. Well worth a play.

Rating: 9.3/10

Buy it here.

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

Grabbed by the Ghoulies is the first game made by Rare after they were purchased by Microsoft. It’s not really remembered all that fondly, but I have a feeling that that reputation is caused by the buyout because I like it a lot and there’s been a bit of an anti-Rare sentiment about since then.

The story follows two teenagers called Cooper and Amber who enter an old mansion after they got lost on a dark and stormy night. The mansion is owned by Baron Von Ghoul and is full of ghouls. The pair of them keep falling into more and more problematic situations and as Cooper you have to fight through the ghouls to find the secrets of the house.

The story is quite simple but it leads in to a very fun game. Each level has you getting through a different room in the mansion and to do that you have to fight and defeat ghouls in different ways and within different limitations. You punch and kick and you use items in the room as weapons and it’s all very enjoyable: it’s also very simple and easy to get into the swing of. Other fighting-based games have very complex control schemes, but this one literally just has you pointing the right stick in the direction you want to attack. Simple and endlessly fun.

What makes this game especially entertaining is that all of the ghouls have tonnes of personality. They all interact with each other in funny ways, they all make silly noises and they all have funny reactions to being attacked by you. My personal favourites were the skeletons, which just so happen to be the ones you see most often. Those skeletons were downright hilarious.

Plus, on the subject of tone and charm, the game is full of references to other Rare games. You’ll find Banjo-Tooie character portraits up on the walls, pictures of Mr. Pants and Captain Blackeye, Sabre Wulf posters and much more too. They even fitted in a Donkey Kong Country reference and Banjo’s pet goldfish Roysten is actually in the game himself! It feels very much in-line with the world created in the Banjo-Kazooie series and I liked it a lot.

Overall, this is an amazing game. It’s enormously fun, has excellent graphics, a great spooky soundtrack and is deeply charming. History is unfair in how it remembers Grabbed by the Ghoulies and you should definitely give it a try.

Rating: 9.5/10

Buy it here.

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

I’m up pretty late right now because I was trying to win an especially long boss fight in a game. The same thing happened last night. The boss isn’t hard, just really long. I know how to dodge all of its attacks and harm it as much as possible. What, artistically, do I actually gain by going through the same little process over and over again? It’s repetitive, boring and mundane.

When I was thinking about how bad this particular boss is, I reflected that I don’t really like boss battles in general. Why do video games always need to have bosses? Boss battles are frequently repetitive, they break your immersion (buy killing you a lot) and are often quite forced. It’s such a deeply ingrained part of video game culture that all games have them (pretty much) but why? I can’t really think of any thing like it in different mediums.

Having said that, I do have to admit that there are one or two boss battles which I really loved, but not many. When I like a boss, it’s because it feels like a natural part of the narrative or the journey which the game is trying to take me on – I feel like a good 90% of boss battles are just thrown in because the creators feel like bosses are an essential. But why does nobody ever question this? Video games do not need boss battles to be good and, in fact, some might even be improved by their removal!