Every now and then it happens to see independent games on the digital stores that squeeze the eye to the great successes of the market a little too much. This time it was up to Mario Kart (here our review of the last chapter), the most famous Kart Racer ever, which on Xbox received a clone as bizarre as it is clumsy: it’s called Marcus Kart World, but judging by the promotional images could even be called Maria Kart World.
The game appeared a few days ago on the Xbox Store and immediately attracted attention to social media. However, not for the quality or originality, but for the choice of the title and cover, which recall the famous Nintendo series in a too evident way.

To worsen the situation, the use of images generated with artificial intelligence, which further fueled the criticisms of the community, thought about it.
Looking at the gameplay, however, the similarity with Mario Kart is actually much less marked. Marcus Kart World is a classic colored Kart Racer, with bizarre characters, tracks full of shortcuts and power-ups to be collected, but the settings and general style do not remember the Nintendo series at all.
The impression is that the developers have decided to focus everything on the name and appearance of the box art to attract curiosities, without worrying too much about the controversies that would have followed.
The official description speaks of a fast and chaotic game, with single-player and local multiplayer modes, tracks ranging from tropical ruins to neon cities and a driving system that focuses a lot on drifting. Nothing new or particularly original, but enough to configure it as a typical indie project without too many pretensions.
The problem, therefore, is not so much the content of the game, as the marketing operation that led to publish it with such a ambiguous name. For many users, this type of choices risks undermining the credibility of the digital stores, which are often accused of not properly controlling the quality and presentation of the products in the catalog.
Between memes and criticisms, Marcus Kart World has become a small social case in a few days. It will hardly be remembered for the gameplay, but rather as one of the most clear examples of how you can try to exploit the echo of a famous franchise without too much attention to the final result.