Global Sports: Retro Bikes in a Nintendo Game

Monday, September 24, 2012

Retro Bikes in a Nintendo Game

By Rob Sutter


Nintendo seems to be the guiltiest party when it comes to discharging spinoff titles featuring its characters. With Mario in particular, we've seen releases of golf, tennis, and fighting games showcasing the company's beloved personalities. What I haven't seen, though, is the inclusion of a biking game. Considering the theory of retro bikes when talking about characters that have been around for ages, it sounds like a great fit.

I'm sure most, if not all, gamers are familiar with the tremendously popular "Mario Kart" series. The idea of the many characters from the Mario series fighting in several laps, utilizing items to foil your opponent's plans for victory is a novel concept. What Mario Kart doesn't have, amongst other features that a biking game can implement, is a trick system. Extreme sports is focused on tricks, to a great degree, but achieving the highest score when going for said tricks is just as imperative.

I can envision "Mario Biking" working in a synonymous manner as other popular extreme sports titles. An emphasis on scoring and pulling off amazing tricks should be outlined, as opposed to racing and competition. Each character would have their own set skills, instances being Mario as an all-around biker, Bowser as a slower yet study biker, and so forth. The characters would have their own retro bikes to use and they would be formed to fit the character mounting them.

As far as pulling off tricks in "Mario Biking" is concerned, I'd say the use of familiar Mario items such as in the karting games should be included. For example, the Mushrooms are classically used as speed boosts so why not use those for a biker to gain more momentum on a half-pipe? In addition, the Fire Flower can be used as a competitive item, when competitions are in effect, that is. One fire ball to the bike and a rider would be taken off course, not able to successfully pull off a trick. Although the bikes in this game are much different from the city bikes made by Linus, these are just a couple of examples of employing items to enhance the game.

A Mario video game with biking as the emphasis should be a great idea. There is a wide variety of characters to pick from and considering just how good Nintendo's titles are, there isn't a reason to worry about graphical hiccups or clipping through structures. It would be highly competitive, which is what many of Mario's spinoff titles prosper to be. It can be as possible as "Mario Kart," if given the right amount of care and attention as the other games.




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