Mario Kart Wii
The Mario Kart series has always been great because of two reasons. One, is the cool-factor of racing with your favorite Nintendo characters. Two, because you can have a blast with friends. While these two things are present in Mario Kart Wii, and in one case improved upon, it's definitely not the best game in the series.
While playing, I was never feeling like it was a Wii game in itself. Rather, I felt like I was playing some good old Mario Kart, which isn't a bad thing, but when the game releases on a system with so much potential to innovate the series, I feel a little left out. It all boils down to the controls. With Mario Kart Wii, you can play with five controller configurations. The game comes with the 'Wii Wheel', a plastic shell that you can put your Wii remote into, to feel like your controlling a car. You can choose to just use the remote without the Wii Wheel, but it's difficult and I found myself playing with one hand. You can play with the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, which is a nice way to control it, but can end up being frustrating, especially in the 100cc and 150cc difficulties. The last two options are the GameCube controller and the Classic controller, which completely defeats the purpose of it being a Wii game. It seems that the Wii controls fail to innovate the series, only change it.
The big inclusion in Mario Kart Wii is the motorbikes. Yes, the game now has motorbikes, which on the surface, sounds really good. The way the game is set up is that you can play 50cc with Karts only, 100cc with bikes only, or 150cc with both Karts and bikes. To add, 150cc is incredibly difficult, especially if you are new to the series. The bikes themselves are pretty cool, as you can go off of jumps and perform aerial tricks. Also included in the game is the ability to now go online and race people around the world. Up to 12 players can battle it out, and the service is undoubtedly the best the Wii currently has to offer, which is unfortunately limited to begin with. You can install the Mario Kart Wii Channel, which gives you leaderboards and other features. You can also save time trails and participate in Nintendo-supported tournaments. From what I've played, it has no lag and finds opponents quick, and voting for maps is cool.
Mario Kart Wii seems like a mediocre effort overall, unfortunately. The character animations are horrible in relation to what we've seen on the Wii already, and the Battle mode is kind of clueless, as it's just way too easy. Nintendo appears to want to appeal to a bigger audience this time around, which is good, but sacrificing any innovation makes Mario Kart Wii feel like another lap on the same race track. What is good is that not only does it have new tracks, which are fun and challenging in higher difficulties, but it also includes SNES, N64, DS, and GBA stages as well, which brings back the days I remember, although the game was feeling nostalgic even without the retro tracks, and with the retro tracks included, it feels more like a past game rather than a brief blast to the past.
Wii's Mario Kart outing is a good game, although it feels stuck in the past and a little boring. Still, if you've got three buddies around and are looking for a good game to play together, you can't go wrong with Mario Kart Wii. Just don't expect it to Wow you like Super Mario Galaxy or Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
