12-player Mario Kart?

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We dissect Nintendo's E3 trailer for 11 revealing clues

Shortcut Potential

We're already planning a Mushroom-aided shortcut behind that lamppost and over the pathway leading past these houses. YouTube is going to be filled with videos of people finding evermore ingenious and unplanned routes over, around and through different bits of scenery.

Nintendo-nod scenery

The tracks are choc-a-block with cutesy Nintendo references, such as these NES-sprite lamppost placards (with "MARIO KART " written like the Nintendo logo). The pipework of Wario Mines makes us wish we could leap out the kart and explore... even if ducking down the green chimneys would get you a singed ass if the smoke's anything to go by.

Check out these screens and you'll see Wario performing the kind of 360-degree spin that will have Excite Truck players' wrists contracting in sympathy. But what's the point? Nintendo's keeping something back from these screenshots: we're predicting that repeated stunts like this - which are bound to involve waggling or rotating the Wii remote - will build up an SSX-esque boost bar that'll do... something. Extra speed maybe, like Mario Kart GBA 's coins? Spontaneous powerups appearing in your grasp? We'll see.

So: best Mario Kart ever? Impossible to tell at this stage. But there's an unmistakable aura of Nintendo returning to the series' standout installments. In controls, design, items and tracks, Mario's tit-for-tat kart battles on Wii seem to marry the best of Mario Kart 64 and its handheld sibling Mario Kart DS - everyone's favorite MKs - and throw just enough new stuff into the pot to get us rubbing our hands and cackling like crook-nosed witches.