Customer Rating:  
Summary: perfect for a mario and racing fan
Comment: The Mario car that comes with this set works great, but the
other one is a waste of time. falls off the track everytime, is too tall to make the underpass sometimes even. So you will definitely need
to buy extra cars, but I guess that is the fun of slot car racing.
I expect by the end of the summer, we will have bought several track
expansion sets and several additional cars. Its a ton of
fun and seems like a really nice quality slot car set.
Educational -- ? Well yes, like legos, needed a lot of patience, dexterity, and hard work interpreting the layout diagrams
on my 8 year olds part to put together.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Marketed as an entry-level set, but too difficult for the novice.
Comment: My son was immediately attracted to this set because of the familiar characters. I assembled it while he was sleeping and found that I couldn't keep the cars on the track for more than a couple of laps at the time. The controllers are too sensitive for the kind of responsiveness you need to navigate the steep curves and vertical challenges of the advertised track layout.
The Wario car, in particular, must have a weird center of gravity, because it hops off the tracks even on the slightest of curves. Mario is better, but still, this set will cause far more aggravation than delight. My suggestions to Carrera would be:
1) stronger magnets to keep the cars on track
2) lighter cars so the magnets can hold them down more easily
3) much more gradual change in speed with the analog controllers
4) entry-level sets need entry-level track layouts
I bought a competitor's 1:43 scale "kid's" set for about the same price, and it's a blast (SCX 1:43 "Tuner" set). The cars have lights for great fun in the dark, and even with reasonably steep curves, the cars can absolutely SCREAM around the track without coming out of the slot. You get less track than the Carrera set, but the SCX set more than makes up for the difference with simplicity of construction and PLAYABILITY. My three year-old had the hang of racing the SCX tuners in about 30 minutes.
I've been trying to manage the Mario set for a few hours now, and if I want to stay on the tracks, I have to creep around at a snail's pace. I'll try a simpler (FLAT) track layout next to see if we can salvage this Carrera set at all.
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