The Gamer's Quarter

[kirkjerk]

So this evening I fired up Mario Kart: Double Dash with my usual Nintendo buddy. We played Mirror Mode (usually we just do the fastest "regular" Gran Prix.)

Of course, the obvious difference is that some courses you tend to memorize a bit more (in general, the more big landmarks there are, or big asymmetrical turns) and others are more based on reactions. Ones in the former category tend to be a lot trickier in mirror mode.

But there's something else going on, and I think I put my finger on it: things that appear on the left side of the screen attract my attention, figuratively (and sometimes literally) looming larger than the same object on the right.

I'm not sure if it's a cultural bias based on the direction we read, something to do with my dominant hemisphere, or what (my buddy, who is left handed unlike me, claims that some of the reverse courses feel *more* natural.)

Heh, in 1988 had Coca-Cola had a 3D advertisement that may have been based on a similar principle... the commercial still looked ok to people without the glasses, and IIRC the effect depended on how objects moving left to right seemed to coming forward a bit...

Any thoughts? If you do a mirror mode can you identify which side seems to have more "surprising" detail? Is it inversely correlated to your dominant hand?

[dark steve]

I love how the second stage on the racing course in We Love Katamari is mirrored. Now that's postmodernism.

[Zack]

Look at photos of yourself and see which way you tend to face the camera.

[kirkjerk]

[DonMarco]

[TOLLMASTER]

In the Mario Kart 64 Mirror Mode, there was a highway stage that becomes 10 times as chaotic in Mirror Mode. Toad's Highway to Hell!

Instead of driving alongside traffic (which is hard as it is) you are driving against the traffic. In essence, it becomes an entirely new stage, one where knowing the track and when to turn and when to attack is useless, but dodging cars is what seperates a winner from a loser.

[kirkjerk]