Genre: Kart Racing
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

Mario Kart World has the best graphics this reviewer has ever seen on a handheld. It looks razor sharp in both TV and handheld mode. It has vibrant, bright colors, cool water reflections, and lots of variety in settings like forests, deserts, and high-tech spaceship launch facilities. The framerate is absolutely rock solid, and never seems to waver at all. The menus are clear and easy to read, almost unbelievably polished, and have lots of little transition flourishes. As well, the character designs are hilarious, such as Boo with a visored helmet on, or a bird with a super long skinny neck.

This title's music is primary Jazz-fusion with some rock motifs. It feels very safe, and it's so "perfect" it's actually kind of boring. It doesn't really pop out of the speakers like one would expect. As well, too much of it is remixes from other Nintendo games, there's not enough original material-- it just sort of drones on in the background, especially in the free roaming open world mode. The characters have voice acting during jumps or when they get hit, can be quite hilarious such as Waluigi lamenting "Why meeeee!!".

Mario Kart World, for better or for worse, uses the same "hold ZR to slide"-kind of gameplay as in the other contemporary Mario Kart titles. It sort of feels quasi-automated, and not very nuanced. In this one though, a non-turning boost jump can also be triggered, allowing the player to leap into rails and even to wall ride during the boost itself. Long road segments join the tracks into a giant open world, and during the cups these conjoining segments are raced as well. The open world can also be explored in a standalone mode, where the player completes "p-switch" challenges and looks for oftentimes hidden yellow panels, which can be driven on to activate and unlock.

Mario Kart World technically plays fine: the controls feel decent, the graphics and user interface are polished, it has an instrumented Red Book-style soundtrack-- but something about the whole experience leaves this reviewer a little cold. What Mario Kart World lacks is personality; it just feels soulless. It feels like it was designed and directed from a board room, with no real passion behind it other than to simply crank out "another Mario Kart"-- like a product from a factory. The bright spot at least is the new knockout mode, which is probably the best way to play this solid-but-unspectacular release.