Coming to London
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/mario-kart-vr-londonMario Kart VR has come to London, its first location in Europe, so you can now settle those Rainbow Road rivalries in person. Wahoo!
Japanese gaming company Bandai Namco is launching the Mario Kart VR experience at its VR Zone Portal inside Hollywood Bowl at the O2 in Greenwich, following the game’s success at the company’s large VR Zone amusement park in Shinjuku, Tokyo. It will be available to play from August 3.
The decision to bring Mario Kart to VR was a no-brainer, says Matt Bradley, VR project manager at Bandai Namco. “It’s such a strong IP,” he says. “When you say Mario Kart, all kids know Mario Kart, all grown-ups know Mario Kart.” He adds that non-VR arcade game Mario Kart GP has always been a bestseller for Bandai Namco’s amusements, so it makes good business sense too.
Mario Kart VR is pretty self-explanatory to anyone who has played a console or arcade version of the game. There are four karts in the VR Zone – seats on moving platforms that have a steering wheel and two pedals (accelerator and brake). Each kart corresponds to one of four playable characters: Mario, Luigi, Peach and Yoshi.
The VR tech is provided by HTC Vive. Each player wears a headset and headphones, and wraps a pair of hand trackers – knobbly plastic devices with Velcro straps – around their wrists. The game starts and you are plunged into the Mario Kart world, with Lakitu hanging on his cloud ready to count down to the start of the race. Look down and you can see your character’s hands on the wheel; push the accelerator pedal and you can feel the car judder beneath you.
When the starting signal sounds, you shoot forward and it’s time to race. When you go over a jump, fans in the car’s base give the impression of wind in your face, and when you bash into another kart, crash into a wall or run into an exploding Bob-omb, you can feel your vehicle shake. The real fun comes with using the hand trackers to grasp in-game items, including green turtle shells, banana skins and giant hammers (always go for the hammer where you can). Raising your hand over the virtual object picks it up, and you can then physically fling it towards your opponents, with the tracking technology translating your real-life actions into the VR world.
HTC’s Graham Wheeler says the hand tracking was the company’s main focus in terms of bringing the Mario Kart world to life. “It just makes it much more natural and much more immersive – you can hold the steering wheel but at the same time have your arms tracked in VR,” he says.
For HTC, arcade scenarios like this are a good way to show off what their tech can do, in a setup that wouldn’t be possible to emulate at home. VR arcades and theme parks have boomed in China and Japan, and Bandai Namco is expanding its VR Zone franchise into other small “portals” in the UK and Europe, including bringing Mario Kart VR to additional locations in Tunbridge Wells and Leeds later this summer. “It could take over the arcades in the future,” Bradley says. The VR Zone Portal at the O2 Hollywood Bowl currently has one other experience: the terrifying multiplayer horror game Hospital Escape Terror, which is not for the faint of heart.
Mario Kart VR currently consists of one track and lasts under five minutes. It costs £7.99 per player. Bradley says there are no fixed plans to expand the experience yet and that all work is done in close collaboration with Nintendo. But, based on feedback, he says there could well be more tracks in future.
For now, a top tip: you don’t need the brake.
