Mario Kart 8

As the name suggests, today’s Mario Kart 8 track, Cloudtop Cruise, takes players on an adventure through the clouds. Fluffy white clouds, lush green vines, dark thunderheads, a fleet of airships… there’s so much visual variety here, and it feels like something different is going on around every corner.

The race starts on a giant beanstalk that has grown up into the bright sky, but you’ll soon find yourself racing on the clouds themselves. Note how the clouds yield slightly to the vehicles, with your skidding turns leaving curved scars in their soft surfaces. Then, it’s onto one of Bowser’s many airships, where sturdy barrels on the deck can impede your progress. For some reason, the airship has a heavy-looking anchor, which doesn’t seem like the greatest engineering idea…

At the bow of the airship is a cannon that shoots you onto a floating metal track inside a storm cloud. Dash Panels litter the track here, and you’ll want to use them for a boost of speed, but lightning will strike these panels in an alternating pattern. Watch for a strike to start building up so you can avoid that panel altogether.

As you near the end of a lap, you’ll glide down onto a giant stone ‘?’ Block and then back onto the beanstalk again. This is a really neat reference to the fact that beanstalks grow out of ‘?’ Blocks in several classic Super Mario games.

The music on this course is also worth mentioning. It includes part of the Gusty Garden Galaxy and the Sky Station Galaxy tracks from the Super Mario Galaxy series, and it transitions from a full orchestral symphony in the bright sections of the track, which create the sense of a vast world in the clouds, to electric guitars in the thunderstorm section.

Next time, we’re back on the ground and racing through deserts and canyons of Bone-Dry Ruins.