There have been Mario Kart-themed remote control cars before. But without power-ups, they were mere remote control cars. A new Mario Kart range from Takara Tomy does have power-ups, and it looks fantastic.
How does it work? With sensors. Your controller has a small bar for power-ups; as you run over the relevant spot on the track, you're randomly assigned one of them, just like a game. There's bananas, green shells, mushrooms, stars and even lightning. When you activate them, the actual boost is performed, so a mushroom would make you go faster, or lightning would, when you touch another cart, make it spin off.
There's even a little speaker, which will no doubt crackle "woohoo!" at you every three seconds. They go on sale in Japan later this month, and will cost around USD$30 for each cart.
Tomy's Mario Kart shoots Shells and Bananas at other karts [Newlaunches]