Mario Kart World sports tons of items with a great combination of new inclusions like the Golden Shell, classics like the Blue Shell, and even some items like the Feather that have been missing from the series for a long time. Perhaps because it’s so chock-a-block with item variations, I couldn’t help but notice that one of my all-time favorite items is nowhere to be found once again: the Fake Item Box.
The Fake Item Box debuted in Mario Kart 64 and continued into Double Dash, Mario Kart DS, and Mario Kart Wii. It was, like it says on the tin, a doppelganger of the regular item box, but it would knock you over more like a shell. The fake box would look different enough from a regular box that you could spot it–the question mark would be upside-down, and sometimes it would be a slightly different color. But the differences were subtle. You could easily miss the distinction when rushing through a track and be caught unaware.
That gave the Fake Item Box a high skill ceiling, both for deploying and avoiding it. Item Boxes are a prized commodity in Mario Kart, so your instinct is to go straight for it when you see one. Deploying the Fake Item Box was a layer of mind games in this otherwise raucous kart racer, challenging you to carefully lay it around blind corners or hidden among legitimate item boxes. It provided a sneakier defensive option than the lowly Banana for those leading the pack. Likewise, avoiding it required you to stay on your toes. You might notice that a standard item box looks a little bit wrong and only notice as you pass it that a fake box was hiding just behind it.
