It's basically a joke about how the AI, specifically in Mario Kart Wii, has a tendency to have it out for you. In other words you're assaulted by bombs, shells, bananas, power-ups, and the racers in general more often than not. Almost to the point that unless you are really far in first place one attack can send you all the way to the back of the pack.
It's basically a joke about how the AI, specifically in Mario Kart Wii, has a tendency to have it out for you. In other words you're assaulted by bombs, shells, bananas, power-ups, and the racers in general more often than not. Almost to the point that unless you are really far in first place one attack can send you all the way to the back of the pack.
That's pretty much how it's always worked from Mario Kart 64 onwards. (In the original, the AI players didn't get regular items, but launched character-specific attacks, like Yoshi laying banana peel-like eggs around regardless of what place he was in.)
Rubber-banding in the races means that if you're far enough ahead, other racers will drive at impossible speeds to catch up, while they go slower if you're far enough behind. Likewise, the AI gets more severe weapons (blue shells, anyone?) the further ahead you get.
Because of that, it's sometimes a better strategy to just purposefully drop to 3rd or 4th place, get some red shells, struggle up to 2nd without items, then blast the 1st place guy right before the finish line to nab 1st before the AI can start pulling blue shells on you. (Alternately, in co-op, for the purposes of getting all the trophies, have one player be the designated winner, and the other be the bodyguard who hangs back at 4th place and murders the competition.)
Wii is only different because that's when they made it all presume the main mode was online play, and hence made the bots more aggressive like regular players, instead of having a few trailing losers that are always gimped so that you have to have no idea what you're doing to actually wind up in last place.
It's basically a joke about how the AI, specifically in Mario Kart Wii, has a tendency to have it out for you. In other words you're assaulted by bombs, shells, bananas, power-ups, and the racers in general more often than not. Almost to the point that unless you are really far in first place one attack can send you all the way to the back of the pack.
It's basically a joke about how the AI, specifically in Mario Kart Wii, has a tendency to have it out for you. In other words you're assaulted by bombs, shells, bananas, power-ups, and the racers in general more often than not. Almost to the point that unless you are really far in first place one attack can send you all the way to the back of the pack.
Sounds better than 3 heat seeking rockets followed by 3 warp orbs during CTRNF online play.
I still hate this feature. Rubber banding is in so many racing games. Either make the AI good enough, or you just let the player actually keep his skills and be ahead. Rubber banding is almost always annoyingly noticeable and it doesn't improve the experience in the least.
Either code the ai drivers better or stop making the gameplay rely on everyone focusing on only the player.
Sorry, still pissed off towards so many driving games in my youth that did and still do this.
I still hate this feature. Rubber banding is in so many racing games. Either make the AI good enough, or you just let the player actually keep his skills and be ahead. Rubber banding is almost always annoyingly noticeable and it doesn't improve the experience in the least.
Either code the ai drivers better or stop making the gameplay rely on everyone focusing on only the player.
Sorry, still pissed off towards so many driving games in my youth that did and still do this.
In their defense, coding good A.I. is very hard. Racing A.I. in particular, while seemingly simple, has to go directly up against human intellect and skill, and making something that can do that takes extraordinary talent that the developer company simply may not have on staff. To solve this, they tip the game's balance towards the computer.
Even newly released games today struggle with this, and it is not uncommon for an ambitious project to take off only to realize partway through that they don't have the talent necessary to create the responsive and intricate A.I. needed to bring their creations to life. So they cheat, but even getting A.I. to the point where cheating doesn't look or feel like cheating or doesn't result in the game balance being lopsided is difficult.
Games get accused of this all the time. I know that's merely an excuse, but it's not something that is easily fixed with more time and money. I'm sure they did the best they could with the people they had.
In their defense, coding good A.I. is very hard. Racing A.I. in particular, while seemingly simple, has to go directly up against human intellect and skill, and making something that can do that takes extraordinary talent that the developer company simply may not have on staff. To solve this, they tip the game's balance towards the computer.
Even newly released games today struggle with this, and it is not uncommon for an ambitious project to take off only to realize partway through that they don't have the talent necessary to create the responsive and intricate A.I. needed to bring their creations to life. So they cheat, but even getting A.I. to the point where cheating doesn't look or feel like cheating or doesn't result in the game balance being lopsided is difficult.
Games get accused of this all the time. I know that's merely an excuse, but it's not something that is easily fixed with more time and money. I'm sure they did the best they could with the people they had.
Fair enough, but at the very least, make it less noticeable and don't rubber band the darn things ahead of the player would be preferable.
I have seen cars fly past me at speeds that the car type shouldn't even be capable of.