Ah, Garfield Kart. Where do I begin? I could give you any number of hollow, ironic comments about it - you could really write a book from the Steam reviews alone - but instead, I'm going to do something more interesting. I'm going to argue, to the best of my ability, that Garfield Kart is a better kart racer than the zeitgeist of the genre, Mario Kart. It has areas where it is weaker, sure, and has a smaller overall community; but it is not a game you should dismiss based on its joke appeal.
Gameplay
The two games are really quite comparable. Both are kart racers and share many of the same mechanics; reach the end before everyone else by any means necessary, using shortcuts, power-ups and ruthless racing. Except Garfield Kart does this better. Why? That's a ridiculous claim, so let me explain:
- Garfield Kart introduces a totally new aspect; jumping. One such power-up Garfield Kart offers that Mario Kart does not is the spring, allowing the user to jump into the air. This opens up completely new shortcuts, and indeed, some maps even accommodate this and allow you to take completely new paths.
- Garfield Kart removes the blue shell. It's widely agreed that the blue shell is not the most enjoyable power-up in Mario Kart, and when someone can ruin the first place racer from 12th, there's no reason to use it except pure spite in many cases. I'd argue this makes the game more balanced.
- Garfield Kart adds a number of power-ups that are simply not present in Mario Kart. An example is the magic wand; if you can hit a player with the wand, you will swap positions with them. It requires good aim and timing to pull off, but can be ver rewarding without ever being broken.
- Garfield turns drifting into a more interesting mechanic. While in Mario Kart it can practically be used as a free speed boost, drifts require more precise timing in Garfield Kart. You can't pelt forward at full speed and drift at the same time; you have to take your foot off the accelerator before drifting, like many other classic arcade racers such as OutRun. This is not only more realistic, but makes drifting more important; you have to get your timing right and you'll be rewarded, pulling tight turns off with ease, or you'll just lose speed and bump into a wall.
Visuals
This one is a bit more interesting, because Garfield Kart has recently been released on the Switch as well as the PS4 and XB1. This opens up some direct comparisons on Switch, so here's one:
As you can see, they are surprisingly comparable. One might even prefer the dreamier, post-processed look of Garfield Kart! Garfield Kart runs at a native 1920x1080 on PS4, and while I don't have figures for Xbox One or Switch I'd be surprised if they were sub-1080p. The Switch version of the game is sharp and cohesive, while Mario Kart is interesting - it might be natively 1080p, but lacks any anti-aliasing, resulting in a jagged image at times.
Garfield Kart on Switch uses high resolution shadows and textures - the shadows cast in the above screenshot prove that they have no signs of being low-res or have cutbacks at all - and the bloomed-up post-processing pipeline gives the game a very vibrant, colourful look.
We can also mention the PC version of Garfield Kart, which allows us to run the game at ultra-wide resolutions, higher frame rates and with lots of bonuses applied on top that the Switch can't do.
Both games support 4-player split-screen on all platforms (or, in the case of MK8D, Switch), which is a nice touch, as well as supporting online play. Overall, they are comprehensive technical packages, and there is no clear winner. It's quite subjective as to which looks better.
Competitive Play
Here's the most interesting argument; while both games pose a decent bit of party fun, I'm willing to go the extra mile and say that Garfield Kart is not just the casual winner, but also the better competitive game. Let me explain:
- The more engaged drifting mechanics require more practice and skill to master.
- Power-ups such as the spring add new ways of getting an edge altogether. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a bad offender for hyperbolic amounts of power-ups; the "8" power-up giving you 8 separate items is ridiculous and as I've mentioned, blue-shelling the front-runner from 12th place serves no purpose but to spite the people who are better at the game than you. It doesn't benefit you at all, frankly, in that position.
- The game is flatly more difficult. Cornering is harder due to the sharp, more arcade-like drifting mechanics, power-ups require more thought and some courses will punish the user back several places if they take a mis-step.
- The community for Mario Kart is more toxic and people who play Garfield Kart are much more laid back. There is no Garfield Kart competitive scene (yet) (that I know of), but it's not uncommon for people to take Mario Kart far too seriously. Garfield Kart commands more respect, ironically, because a hard-earned race can't be thrown out the window because you got hit by a flurry of power-ups that required no skill at all.
Music
Okay, let's be fair here. Mario Kart's soundtrack is excellent. It takes lots of well-known tracks and arranges them in a cool, new way, and even has some original compositions. But Garfield's soundtrack is not without merit; it certainly has some blunders, but has many fitting pieces for its courses. They are short, repeated motifs for the most part, as short as 26 seconds in one case and rarely much more than a minute, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. The City Slicker theme, for example, is jazzy with a hint of synth as you drift through a bright and colourful neighbourhood. Similarly, the "Play Misty for Me" and "Loopy Lagoon" themes are predominantly jazz with bursts of rock influence in the form of an occasional, intervening guitar and a gentle bass line. It's not quite going to take Mario Kart off its pole position in this regard, but it's a perfectly respectable collection of tunes that does the job well.
Conclusion
Yes, not everyone will agree with me. Some people will vigilantly stick with Mario Kart as a sacred nostalgic entity; others will dismiss Garfield Kart as a joke off the bat. But if you're willing to see what Garfield Kart right, there is plenty of reason to enjoy it more than Mario Kart. It can be more frustrating, but it requires more precision than Mario Kart, has a more tight-knit community and it has a pleasing, effervescent post-processing pipeline resulting in a visual direction that is full of life and spirit in its own way. It's worth not dismissing, at the very least, and is a source of laughs and frustrations with your friends just like Mario Kart.
Gameplay
The two games are really quite comparable. Both are kart racers and share many of the same mechanics; reach the end before everyone else by any means necessary, using shortcuts, power-ups and ruthless racing. Except Garfield Kart does this better. Why? That's a ridiculous claim, so let me explain:
- Garfield Kart introduces a totally new aspect; jumping. One such power-up Garfield Kart offers that Mario Kart does not is the spring, allowing the user to jump into the air. This opens up completely new shortcuts, and indeed, some maps even accommodate this and allow you to take completely new paths.
- Garfield Kart removes the blue shell. It's widely agreed that the blue shell is not the most enjoyable power-up in Mario Kart, and when someone can ruin the first place racer from 12th, there's no reason to use it except pure spite in many cases. I'd argue this makes the game more balanced.
- Garfield Kart adds a number of power-ups that are simply not present in Mario Kart. An example is the magic wand; if you can hit a player with the wand, you will swap positions with them. It requires good aim and timing to pull off, but can be ver rewarding without ever being broken.
- Garfield turns drifting into a more interesting mechanic. While in Mario Kart it can practically be used as a free speed boost, drifts require more precise timing in Garfield Kart. You can't pelt forward at full speed and drift at the same time; you have to take your foot off the accelerator before drifting, like many other classic arcade racers such as OutRun. This is not only more realistic, but makes drifting more important; you have to get your timing right and you'll be rewarded, pulling tight turns off with ease, or you'll just lose speed and bump into a wall.
Visuals
This one is a bit more interesting, because Garfield Kart has recently been released on the Switch as well as the PS4 and XB1. This opens up some direct comparisons on Switch, so here's one:
As you can see, they are surprisingly comparable. One might even prefer the dreamier, post-processed look of Garfield Kart! Garfield Kart runs at a native 1920x1080 on PS4, and while I don't have figures for Xbox One or Switch I'd be surprised if they were sub-1080p. The Switch version of the game is sharp and cohesive, while Mario Kart is interesting - it might be natively 1080p, but lacks any anti-aliasing, resulting in a jagged image at times.
Garfield Kart on Switch uses high resolution shadows and textures - the shadows cast in the above screenshot prove that they have no signs of being low-res or have cutbacks at all - and the bloomed-up post-processing pipeline gives the game a very vibrant, colourful look.
We can also mention the PC version of Garfield Kart, which allows us to run the game at ultra-wide resolutions, higher frame rates and with lots of bonuses applied on top that the Switch can't do.
Both games support 4-player split-screen on all platforms (or, in the case of MK8D, Switch), which is a nice touch, as well as supporting online play. Overall, they are comprehensive technical packages, and there is no clear winner. It's quite subjective as to which looks better.
Competitive Play
Here's the most interesting argument; while both games pose a decent bit of party fun, I'm willing to go the extra mile and say that Garfield Kart is not just the casual winner, but also the better competitive game. Let me explain:
- The more engaged drifting mechanics require more practice and skill to master.
- Power-ups such as the spring add new ways of getting an edge altogether. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a bad offender for hyperbolic amounts of power-ups; the "8" power-up giving you 8 separate items is ridiculous and as I've mentioned, blue-shelling the front-runner from 12th place serves no purpose but to spite the people who are better at the game than you. It doesn't benefit you at all, frankly, in that position.
- The game is flatly more difficult. Cornering is harder due to the sharp, more arcade-like drifting mechanics, power-ups require more thought and some courses will punish the user back several places if they take a mis-step.
- The community for Mario Kart is more toxic and people who play Garfield Kart are much more laid back. There is no Garfield Kart competitive scene (yet) (that I know of), but it's not uncommon for people to take Mario Kart far too seriously. Garfield Kart commands more respect, ironically, because a hard-earned race can't be thrown out the window because you got hit by a flurry of power-ups that required no skill at all.
Music
Okay, let's be fair here. Mario Kart's soundtrack is excellent. It takes lots of well-known tracks and arranges them in a cool, new way, and even has some original compositions. But Garfield's soundtrack is not without merit; it certainly has some blunders, but has many fitting pieces for its courses. They are short, repeated motifs for the most part, as short as 26 seconds in one case and rarely much more than a minute, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. The City Slicker theme, for example, is jazzy with a hint of synth as you drift through a bright and colourful neighbourhood. Similarly, the "Play Misty for Me" and "Loopy Lagoon" themes are predominantly jazz with bursts of rock influence in the form of an occasional, intervening guitar and a gentle bass line. It's not quite going to take Mario Kart off its pole position in this regard, but it's a perfectly respectable collection of tunes that does the job well.
Conclusion
Yes, not everyone will agree with me. Some people will vigilantly stick with Mario Kart as a sacred nostalgic entity; others will dismiss Garfield Kart as a joke off the bat. But if you're willing to see what Garfield Kart right, there is plenty of reason to enjoy it more than Mario Kart. It can be more frustrating, but it requires more precision than Mario Kart, has a more tight-knit community and it has a pleasing, effervescent post-processing pipeline resulting in a visual direction that is full of life and spirit in its own way. It's worth not dismissing, at the very least, and is a source of laughs and frustrations with your friends just like Mario Kart.
