At long last, Downtown Vancouver has its own Mario Kart course
Credit to Author: Harrison Mooney| Date: Sat, 08 Feb 2020 16:27:27 +0000
For nearly 30 years, Mario Kart’s colourful cast of characters has competed all over the Mushroom Kingdom, from the beach to the jungle to the capital city of Toad Town.
But the pudgy plumber and his pals go even further afield in the latest entry, visiting actual places like London, Paris and, beginning next week, downtown Vancouver.
Released in September 2019, Mario Kart Tour is the 14th game in the beloved Mario Kart franchise. The mobile game, available for iOS and Android devices, features biweekly, themed tours, with classic courses like Rainbow Road, Koopa Troopa Beach, or DK Jungle Parkway alongside a quartet of real-world locations, including New York and Tokyo.
On Feb. 11, the tour comes west, as gamers get their first new course since the game’s release, as well as the first in Canada. In the Vancouver course, Mario and friends can take in views of the North Shore Mountains as they race by local landmarks like Chinatown’s Millennium Gate and the Olympic cauldron at Jack Poole Plaza.
The Valentine's Tour is drawing to a close, but don't let that break your heart! Starting Feb. 11, 10 PM PT, you can take a spin through the city of Vancouver and enjoy its natural beauty. What sights are you looking forward to? #MarioKartTour pic.twitter.com/1R8gWflw2W
One wonders if we’ll also see Douglas Coupland’s 8-bit whale sculpture. The Digital Orca has always seemed like something out of a video game. It’s also just across the way from the cauldron, and it seems safe to assume that any geospatially accurate Vancouver-based Mario Kart course would take racers around the waterfront side of the Vancouver Convention Centre, where they’re sure to encounter the statue.
But Mario Kart has never really cared about being realistic. This is a world where eating mushrooms makes you a better driver, after all. Also we don’t have the northern lights, unless you’re talking about the ones on Grouse Mountain. Plus the teaser image above seems to suggest that there is a road that goes underneath the cauldron and across the harbour to North Vancouver. It’s a real slap in the face to what’s there in real life, and what should definitely be part of the Mario Kart Vancouver course: the floating Chevron.
It’s a shocking oversight, especially from Nintendo, a company whose Canadian offices are right here in Vancouver.
They did get one thing absolutely right, though: Coal Harbour really does feel that empty after dark.
The Olympic connection is a notable one, since Super Mario last visited Vancouver in Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games, a Nintendo and Sega collaboration. Disappointingly, the 2009 sports and party game didn’t feature the floating Chevron either.
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