Mario Kart

Ryan Molter playing Mario Kart.

 

Recently Nintendo has come back into style when they dropped the “Mario Kart Tour” on the apple store. In hopes of bringing fun and competitive game play to smartphones, according to CNN, they had over 14.3 million installs in the first week of release. Mario Kart has been popular through consoles since the early 1990s, which made it very easy for people to quickly join in on the game.

In the game, players choose their character, kart, glider and track for each round. In order to unlock characters, karts and other badges, players must collect coins on the track or defeat special levels to achieve rubies. Those coins and rubies can then be traded in for an opportunity to win new items. In order to move onto new locations you need a specific number of stars. To achieve these stars, players must get a certain number of points by performing tricks and using power-ups. The levels get harder as you go and the number of points required rises. 

At Panther Creek, the app went viral. Many students have downloaded it and still continue to play a month after the release. However, teachers have not been very happy about it. It has become a major distraction during class. Phones have always been a topic of debate as to whether or not they interrupt educational lessons. Now that Mario Kart is available to everyone, the competition will only increase and it doesn’t look like teachers will be very excited about it.