Ever since Mario Kart Wii, Nintendo has changed how the power sliding mechanic works, and for the better I might add. The left-right waggle method was a hold over from the Nintendo 64 days when an analog stick was shown as a worthy method for contolling games, but as time went on, it became more and more apparent for snaking to exist within the franchise since then. Yes. This includes Mario Kart 64, Double Dash and the DS iteration. So when people cry afowl about the new drift mechanic introduced in the Wii version, there's one important factor to keep in mind.

Both Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart 7 rely on the player to hold onto the drift button to execute two levels of boost. However, you can obtain a boost faster should you take the turn sharper. If you find a sharp 180 degree hairpin, come at the turn from a wide angle, turn sharply against the curve and you'll find yourself with a level 2 boost in no time. It's actually a very nice mechanic that also works for people who are just coming into Mario Kart, since outside of instruction manuals, it's not really explained. So for those who are jumping in for the first time, it's a much easier tactic to understand.

Now, if you look at Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing, they did the whole "Hold the drift button as long as you can to charge your boost" which is the most broken and horrible way to use the mechanic. How quickly you gain a boost depends on the weight class of the character selected. On top of that, the producer, Steve Lycett has gone on to explain that the drift boost mechanic was made so that all characters can obtain the same top speed if they charge their boost all the way up. But because some weight classes have a harder time taking corners, plus other techniques such as holding the D-Pad and analog stick in the same direction can change a character's direction and if carefully done can hold on their boost, it's completely breaks the game and renders several drivers effectively useless if you're looking for a fair race for first place. Item's won't help you as homing rockets will either be cancelled out by the lead's weapons, or they'll just destroy themselves if the lead racer is too far ahead.

So fret not race fans, Mario Kart's got your back.

What the hell is snaking anyway? Is it when you stay in a drift the whole race or something?

I actually like snaking. :(

I'm not sure what you're trying to say in the first paragraph, but I wouldn't believe that the controller is the reason snaking was removed without a legitimate source. Snaking was removed because it was too advanced for new players.

From my experience, the general opinion of actual Mario Kart players is that snaking was awesome and its removal is a bad thing. Power sliding back and forth to gain speed was a deep mechanic and added to the gameplay.

Note that I'm not an experienced Mario Kart player (I'm pretty bad at all of them), I'm just sharing what I've gathered about the series over the years.

After playing a bit of the online for 7 its a lot better now that 'snaking' has been made harder to do. IMO it's a fair balance change which made the races i've played so far a lot closer and thus more fun to play.

@MideonNViscera: Snaking.

Or if you prefer video, look here.

@wemibelec90: Wow, I have been snaking since Mario Kart 64 and never knew it. No way could I do it on the 3DS anyway though. It's too small for my hands or something.

So it's like bunny hopping in quake?

@Hitzel said:

I'm not sure what you're trying to say in the first paragraph, but I wouldn't believe that the controller is the reason snaking was removed without a legitimate source. Snaking was removed because it was too advanced for new players.

From my experience, the general opinion of actual Mario Kart players is that snaking was awesome and its removal is a bad thing. Power sliding back and forth to gain speed was a deep mechanic and added to the gameplay.

Note that I'm not an experienced Mario Kart player (I'm pretty bad at all of them), I'm just sharing what I've gathered about the series over the years.

Er, yeah. The first paragraph isn't written very well. But part of what made power sliding in Mario Kart 64 was because of tilting the stick left and right so that players can adjust their steering (With or without sliding) in a "realistic" matter. In Mario Kart DS, you still can kind of adjust steering, but not as precisely as it could be done with some sort of analog control. Because of it's staple in the series, of course they'll try to make it as familiar as possible in that iteration of the Mario Kart series. If anything, they changed the power sliding in Mario Kart Wii because of the steering wheel attachment, as already pointed out.

Of course Mario Kart purists are going to cry afoul about it. Much like how someone will complain why a certain mechanic in a Street Fighter game, or remove an exploit from a remake of a game will change the way they play the game, or what they won't say is how it stops them from cheesing their way through without the developer's intent. But they'll still argue that "If it's in the game, it should totally be okay!" Even though their logic goes against the sequels and patches that are issued out after the initial game's release.

Well I'm more of a Mario Kart casual but I'm glad there isn't some annoying mechanic that I have to pull off if I actually want to compete with everyone else. I mean isn't there enough to take care of already in a Mario Kart game so that an obnoxious mechanic abuse isn't really necessary.

Then again I guess if there are people who play this on a very competitive level it may have been nice, but meh.

Snaking sucks. It is not fun even when you get good at it but it does help your performance so you had to do it anyways. Good riddance I say.