Mario Kart World on the Switch 2 is a lot more interesting when you can see your friend’s face floating over the kart you’re trying to beat. I’m sitting with some folks from CNET’s sister site IGN and someone from Nintendo as I’m desperately trying to hang in a Knockout Tour competition, and we’re playing with the Switch 2 Camera connected and tracking our faces. Each of our four faces ends up broadcast into the game, floating over our respective vehicles. It’s live video, too: You can stick out your tongue or roll your eyes. Or, as one person did, zoom in on just your ear.

Nintendo is trying its best to show off how its new console is better than the first-gen Switch models. After a full day playing the Switch 2 a couple of months ago, I recently got a second full-day dive ahead of its June 5 launch — more time with Mario Kart World and Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, Nintendo’s only exclusive first-party Switch 2 games at launch. And I finally used GameChat, the console’s new multiperson audio/video chat feature.

I don’t have a Switch 2 to review yet, so I can’t really nail down my feelings about the full experience just yet. But in these early looks, I’m getting a sense that the Switch 2 is a console that, while showing promise, is something you can also easily wait on. That said, GameChat’s a welcome new feature; camera-connected play is surprisingly addictive (and sort of magical), and Mario Kart World is a blast, especially in wild multiplayer matches. After trying 24-player multiplayer, I don’t know if I can go back.

GameChat: Nintendo’s audio-video hangout zone

My 12-year-old tends to play games by starting a FaceTime chat with his friends, and then playing games while keeping his chat on. Sometimes they’re playing together, sometimes they’re not. I kept thinking about that when getting a brief chance to try Switch 2 GameChat at a Nintendo demo event, which basically aspires to do the same thing.

GameChat, which you start by pressing the right Joy-Con’s new C button, connects up to 12 players via audio (or four with video) into a little group. Friends have to be preinvited to GameChat via your own friends list on the Switch 2, making it a deliberate process that’s parent-friendly but not that spontaneous-feeling. Once that’s done, though, chats are fast to start up. 

You can control turning your microphone, camera feed or game feed on and off while in chat. You can also hide your menu screens and just show your game once you’re playing it. You’re either just hearing friends, or seeing split-screen views of up to three others showing their faces, or the games they’re playing, or both.

The $55 Switch 2 Camera is sold separately, and it adds your face. There are a few clever modes that can either show your whole background in a picture-in-picture, cut out your face and body to overlay onto the game footage or zoom in to frame your face (or another part of your face/body you want to track) in a circle. 

Video quality for both your face and game footage isn’t great, but it’s enough to feel connected to see what your friends are doing (and emoting). No one has to be playing the same game together, so it’s more of a way to just share what you’re up to at the same time. It’s really more of a hangout room where you can chat and maybe also play games together.

I got a second demo of camera-connected multiplayer in Mario Kart World, which we did in the same room, but it shows the possibilities of GameChat and multiplayer in other ways. Cleverly, the camera could track and zoom in on all four of our faces at the same time, displaying them separately on-screen as overlays on our karts. It almost felt like augmented reality magic, and reminded me of some of the other tricks I saw in Mario Party Jamboree, which is getting a camera-focused update over the summer.

Mario Kart World: Multiplayer is a blast, so is wandering

I still don’t know if any new Mario Kart game can truly top Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s 96 courses (including DLC), but Mario Kart World is a lot of fun… and something I can’t wait to explore more.

I spent some time with Nintendo’s big Switch 2 launch game in April, but got hours more to dive into wandering around, trying out all the modes, and playing online with 23 others. I got hooked.

Mario Kart World’s best feature is its wandering style: Everything is spread across a huge land, and you can just tool around and discover secrets or suddenly end up on other courses, or parts of courses. In its Free Roam mode, I just kind of tried to find things, mainly P-Switch challenges, which start up little timed events to earn awards, similar to challenges in Super Mario 3D games. 

The courses I tried looked to be unique from lap to lap, unfolding over territory that eventually can lead to other courses if you’re playing in Versus or Knockout Tour modes. Once a race is done, your trip to the other course is still part of the race. It adds variety and changes up how some races even feel, depending on which one you’re heading to next, but also feels like it’s a departure from the more static lap-based courses from older Karts. It’s a lot more like Forza Horizon games in style, which I actually love.

Multiplayer in 24-player modes is total chaos. Many of the courses are wider than previous Mario Kart games to accommodate all those karts, and it can get pretty Mad Max. It also makes surviving feel even more victorious. Knockout Tour is the star of the show. This new mode, which I tried in April, is a survival race that eliminates a certain percentage of players every course. It feels like a 99-player-type survival game, but I like this even better. I once made it to sixth place among a bunch of game journalists, which was enough of a win for me.

Also, the characters? I love them. I played as a cow. I played as a dolphin. I played as a crab. There are so many weird options. It’s lovely.

I also tried Battle Mode, where 24 of us zoomed around pretty large course maps to either collect coins as fast as we could, or try to pop each others’ balloons. It was fun too, but felt more random, less purposeful than the races.

I mostly played in TV-docked mode, which showed off the Switch 2’s graphics quality: clearly better than Switch 1, but not shockingly so. I also tried handheld mode, and I’m impressed by the quality of the Switch 2’s LCD 1080p display, even if it isn’t OLED. 

As good as it all is, though, I don’t think it’s enough on its own to justify a Switch 2 purchase. Not yet. Still, if you’re getting a Switch 2, this game is obviously your must-get, and it feels like it earns that label.

Switch 2 Welcome Tour: It should’ve been free

I spent more time in the weirdly charming Welcome Tour (about an hour and a half), and still can’t tell how much content this «game» has in it. Welcome Tour is literally a walk-through of the Switch 2’s features, accompanied by quizzes, demos and some minigames to try. It clearly should’ve been included on the Switch 2, much like Astro’s Playroom on the PS5. Instead, Nintendo is charging $10 for it — that’s absurd.

Then again, I’d be tempted to get it at launch just to have some things to play with that show off the Switch 2 extras, like mouse mode. Welcome Tour also has lots of weird facts about the Switch 2’s construction and design, like how its speakers are designed and housed. Lots of deep, nerdy stuff, and why is this presented in an app like this? I don’t know, and I wish Nintendo had just made a weird collection of mini-games like 1-2 Switch instead. 

I unlocked some of the areas in the game, finished some quizzes, tested Joy-Con haptics, looked at frame-rate and HDR demos, and did some arcade-ish minigames using the Joy-Con as a mouse. I want to play it more, but I can’t justify the existence of this as a standalone paid game at all. Neither should Nintendo. There’s still time to change course and make this a free download.

Switch 2 still seems great, but not necessary yet

One final note: I walked away from my day of play feeling like I’d be happy to carry around a Switch 2, but unable to justify to friends why they should get one now. It doesn’t feel like a console that demands to be bought yet, and it’s too much of an «enhanced Switch» type of experience at the moment. That will certainly change once more exclusive and enhanced games emerge, but that could take another year. I’ll have more thoughts when I review the Switch 2 soon, but I do see more potential in GameChat and the connected camera than I expected.