It’s great news for anyone who likes their racing games to carry a distinctly wacky (read: brutally unfair) quality: Nintendo’s Wii U exclusive Mario Party 8 is now pretty much playable on PC via Cemu, a rapidly evolving emulator. A new gameplay video shows the progress made between versions 1.1.2b and 1.1.1 (hence the funky screenshot above), and it’s sizeable.
Granted, the port still has a long way to go to achieve 1:1 parity with the original, but development of Exzap’s Cemu emulator has been swift so far. It’s been updated every fortnight since release in October, and stability has come a long way with each update.
Plus, as the above vid demonstrates, the latest build is actually playable, lacking only in that overall glossy quality the original’s lighting model creates. Just one version previously, Mario spends a large amount of time floating in a deeply sinister black abyss.
It looks like you’ll need a pretty beefy PC to run it at pace though: the machine that captured the above footage comprised an Intel Core i7-4790K and a GTX 980.
If you’re particularly psyched by the prospect of Mario Kart 8’s multicoloured vehicular hijinx, it’s likely that future updates in the near future will bring the visuals much closer to the original, so if you’re a sticklier for silky 60 fps play, maybe hold out a little longer.
Or, dodge the murky legality of emulation altogether and just play Rocket League instead, which is about as much fun as you can have on four wheels right now on PC.
Thanks, Kotaku.