Ok so we’re addicted to games. One definite drawback, or benefit depending how you look at it, from being intertwined so closely with the gaming business is that we’re always around games. "Oh, what’s that you say? You have a game for me to play? K." We just can’t resist. Truth of the matter is, we play these games way, way too much. Most recently Team Fortress 2 has been our game of choice, but before that a strange title had our devoted attention.

KartRider, or Popkart as some of you may know it, is a Mario Kart style racing game that has been sweeping the Asian gaming scene for quite a while now. A few months back, the NEXON team released a closed beta version of the game in America. Upon catching wind of this release, your FPSLabs staff, and a good deal of GotFrag’s staff too, downloaded the game and played it pretty religiously until it was ripper, we feel unfairly, from our little hands.

Well, it’s back. NEXON is set to release KartRider in all of its (open beta) glory in the Americas on October 2nd. That’s right ladies and gentlemen: the wait is finally over. While we can’t say for sure whether or not we will be putting in a significant amount of time playing the game due to Valve’s upcoming launch date, we will indeed be playing it. This could not have come at a better time for the GotFrag staff, who have grown frustrated with trying to interpret Chinese stick figure calligraphy. Hopefully the open beta will allow credit card and/or paypal transactions so we can all deck out our cartoon karts. SirScoots: let’s ride.

KartRider open beta. You down?

OMG YES

I'll try it out

No, looks dumb

Not interested