Mario Kart 7 has a BIG shortcut glitch - but will it get fixed?

Sublime though Mario Kart 7 may be, and more than worthy of receiving our coveted 10/10 review score, it contains a glitch that can be exploited for ill-gotten gains (cue sharp intake of incredulous breath). Turns out the Maka Wuhu Loop - Wuhu Mountain Loop in the UK - has a short cut that requires the player to deliberately drive off the circuit, respawning on a different part of the track and cutting out a good third of race distance. Nintendo has reportedly been informed by anxious gamers, who assume it should be easy to patch. Right? Possibly not...

Despite the fact 3DS is designed to be able to update software over SpotPass, Nintendo has apparently refused to patch the issue. YouTube user supershadowheroE3 claims he was told:

Thanks for your patience in waiting for a response during this busy time of year. We are aware that it is possible to navigate a certain part of the track in Wuhu Island in a way that allows a large part of the course to be bypassed. There are no plans to update the game to remove this shortcut as doing so would create an unfair advantage for the users of the original release of the game. Rest assured your comments have been added to our records for Mario Kart 7.

Sincerely,

Buddy Roemer
Nintendo of America Inc.

We've contacted Nintendo to check if this is indeed the case and will update you with any response. But you probably want to know how this shortcut is done, right? We've tested the following method (without boosting, actually) for ourselves and it does indeed skip a huge chunk of the track. Check this out:

Practically every other console's online games refuse to go online unless they have the latest update, so why not just do this with Mario Kart 7? If the statement above is true and Nintendo is THAT concerned about local-only multiplayer getting ruined by some players having an update and some not, they should consider this: In local multiplayer, cheaters are close enough for their fellow racers to call them out as cheating bastards and confiscate their 3DSes until they learn to play nicely. Problem solved.

Source: Stick Twiddlers

Justin Towell

Justin was a GamesRadar staffer for 10 years but is now a freelancer, musician and videographer. He's big on retro, Sega and racing games (especially retro Sega racing games) and currently also writes for Play Magazine, Traxion.gg, PC Gamer and TopTenReviews, as well as running his own YouTube channel. Having learned to love all platforms equally after Sega left the hardware industry (sniff), his favourite games include Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams, Zelda BotW, Sea of Thieves, Sega Rally Championship and Treasure Island Dizzy.