Nintendo’s latest foray into the video game driving world took a quirky detour with ExciteBots, which takes the ExciteTrucks formula of yesteryear and ramps it up with, well, bots.
But there’s something else beneath the hood. Something sinister.
But what, you ask? Why, online gambling! It’s true, as detailed by ars technica:
Admittedly, it’s a very light form of betting. You lay down a set amount of stars at the beginning of each race against other humans, and the better you do in the rankings, the higher your multiplier can become. Come in last? The best you can hope for is to keep your stars. Come in first? You could quintuple your bet, or merely double it. There’s a little bit of luck to how many you win, but the better you race, the more stars you can get. While not as nasty as taking others’ stars directly’you’re basically betting for or against yourself’it gets the job done.
Nintendo might as well have included a crack pipe into the online play.
ars later goes on to compare the stars gambling system to snorting white powder. This in addition to remarks about online play in general for the title, which the outspoken tech pub calls “a blast.”