What is Mario Kart?
Mario Kart is a racing series developed by Nintendo, and its latest edition, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, is currently the best-selling game on the Nintendo Switch console.
There are multiple game modes in Mario Kart:
- Grand Prix: where you race 4 specific tracks, all in one go.
- Time-Trial: race on one track with no other racers, as quickly as you can.
- Vs (versus): choose a track and race the computers with up to 3 other friends. Custom rules can be enabled.
- Battle Mode: these are like mini games, but in cars. Some involve collecting things, some involve targeting and throwing items at other players, and some involve a kart version of “tag”.
How do Mario Kart Time Trials work?
In Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, your personal best time for each track is saved on your system, and you have the option to upload this online**. The game allows you to race against “ghosts” – uploaded gameplay from other users around the world. “Staff ghosts” are times that have been set as a benchmark for players by staff at Nintendo. Alongside this, you can download the times of anyone in your friend list, the top world times, or times that are very similar to yours.
**This requires a Nintendo Switch Online Membership.
This is an amended picture of the Time Trials page. Here, you can see examples of the staff ghost time (green), my best time (yellow), and a time that I have downloaded from another player online (red).
Here is an example of a time trial against a good friend of mine. In this screenshot, I used their “ghost” as a reference to understand how I could get better. The game displays each Lap time – and you can see that our Lap 3 times were very similar!
