Opinion: Mario Kart World is worth the price of the Nintendo Switch 2 alone

Welcome to a bit of an exclusive peek behind the curtain as to how I produce this column each month. First of all, I spend a good hour or so procrastinating by aimlessly scrolling through social media. Then, when I’ve truly exhausted my social feed, and usually my faith in humanity, I’ll write something topical about the intersection between video games or technology and real world cars or car culture.

Not this time, though – this time it’s all video games, because I’m entirely preoccupied with the biggest news in gaming this year: the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 console.

At least Nintendo did me a favour with its choice of launch game for its brand new console. Mario Kart World is undeniably a racing game, though how much relation it bears to real cars is up for debate. Let’s just say I don’t recommend mushrooms as a fuel additive. Mario Kart World is predictably brilliant and its battle royale Knockout Tour mode in particular is powerfully compulsive.

Between that and the huge open world in which the races now take place, it’s easily the biggest shakeup to the Mario Kart formula since the first game. If it’s not too presumptuous to assume that you, a TG reader, are into racing games, Mario Kart World is worth the price of a Switch 2 alone.

But that makes it sound like the console itself is just a means to a Mario Kart end. In fact, the Switch 2 is a desirable bit of kit in and of itself. Whereas the first Nintendo Switch, with its colourful controllers, looked a bit like a Fisher-Price My First Console, its successor is a much more sleek, grown-up looking machine. Which makes it a bit less embarrassing when I, demonstrably an adult man, play it on the train. The looks of pity from people who have proper jobs and social lives have dropped by about 30 per cent.

My favourite feature of the new console is one that sounds almost head slappingly obvious. Game Chat is a system by which you can set up an impromptu chat room with a group of mates, but what makes it clever is you don’t have to wear a sweaty headset to be heard. The microphone is in the Switch 2 itself and it does a load of clever audio filtering to ensure your pals catch every syllable of the very rude thing you just said about their Mario Kart performance.

And without getting too deep into electronic hardware performance figures, because they are nowhere near as exciting as a 0–62 time, the Switch 2 is a powerful little box, capable of portably playing games that only a few years ago were bringing home consoles to their knees. For example retro-futuristic sci-fi roleplaying game Cyberpunk 2077. A game that, I’ve just remembered, does in fact feature a real car, a single Porsche 930 Turbo. Tenuous, I’ll admit, but I think I’ve just about dragged this column back on topic. Normal service will resume next time...