Mario Kart Wii Review
For every new Nintendo console, a new iteration of Nintendo's insanely popular racing spin-off, Mario Kart. Since the release of Super Mario Kart on the Super Nintendo, the series has gained a very large amount of fans, and was a lot of people’s introduction to Nintendo. Mario Kart’s unique take on the racing genre makes them a blast to play, and my favourite racing series of all time. Mario Kart DS has gained much critical acclaim since its launch in late 2005, and has been viewed by many to be the definitive karting experience. In case that doesn't tell you anything, Mario Kart Wii has a tough act to follow. Does it surpass Mario Kart DS as the definitive version of Nintendo’s much-loved franchise?
Mario Kart Wii, like the other games in the series, doesn't have any kind of story. There's still no explanation for why they take karting; something that’s supposed to be a fun past-time, so seriously. Even your beloved hero: Mario will use every dirty trick in the book to win the race. Call me old fashioned, but that's just the way I like my Mario Kart games. But, if anyone can come up with any sort of hypothesis for why they take karting so seriously, I'd be glad to hear it!
The Mario Kart series consists of your favourite Mario, and even Donkey Kong characters (as well as some characters which have nothing to do with Mario himself) coming together for some fast-paced and hectic kart racing. They'll be prepared to use anything they can get their hands on to win the race, mainly items. You can get items by driving through the item boxes, but you’ll have to watch out for the fake item boxes. The phrases "It's the taking part that counts" and "Slow and steady wins the race" have never and, thankfully, still don’t apply to Mario Kart games. With a total of 25 characters; Mario Kart Wii features one of the best rosters of characters in any Mario Kart game! The characters are split into three different height classes; small, medium and big. The different classes get the access to different bikes and karts.
Yoshi and many others return for Mario Kart Wii!
The items are all unique and have different effects. There’s the classic items like the mushroom; which gives you a boost, the star; which makes you faster and invincible. There are also some new items like the mega mushroom from New Super Mario Bros; which makes you much larger and able to squash enemies, and the POW block; which shakes everyone around except for the person who activates it. Oh, and there’s one more new item; the thunder cloud. When you get this item, and then the cloud will appear above you. It’ll give you a few seconds to pass it on to another player by bumping into them, but if it’s above you when the time runs out, you’ll shrink! It makes you slightly faster so you have more of a chance to pass it on, but the majority of the times you get it; you’ll be shrunk by it.
Mario Kart Wii is the game that introduces the Wii Wheel, essentially another plastic shell for your Wii remote to slot into. The Wii Wheel itself looks nice and simple, with a hole in the back to put your wrist strap through and a blue circle at the back saying Wii inside of it. When actually playing the game, I find it’s not the best way to play the game. It’s fun at first, but the novelty of ‘getting behind the wheel’ wears thin after about five minutes. The game sometimes doesn’t register what direction you’re trying to go in, and feels awkward at time. So, the Wii Wheel goes into my pile of unloved Wii accessories. Thankfully, you don’t have to play with the Wii Wheel; as Nintendo have given you some other options. You can play with the Gamecube controller, the Classic controller, and, my personal favourite; the Wii remote and nunchuck combination.
Unfortunately, the Wii Wheel is too unprecise at times.
The changes in Mario Kart are usually small, but effective changes. These changes, while not being too drastic, still keep the chaotic and classic Mario Kart feel intact, but enhance it to keep things fresh. Don’t worry; Mario Kart Wii is no exception. The game new features 12 players as opposed to 8 players in the previous game. This being on the Wii, the motion controls have been added, which I’ve already explained. The biggest addition to the series is being able to ride bikes. This stands next to the two players to one kart mechanic in Double Dash as one of the most controversial changes in Mario Kart history. Its announcement was the cause for concern of some veterans, but you can rest assured that it doesn’t turn the Mario Kart you once loved into something that’s gone horribly wrong. In fact, the bikes are very good. I would go so far as to say they are better than the karts, and are a great addition to the series!
So, other than design, what’s the difference? Well, the bikes can do wheelies, giving you a slight, but noticeable speed increase. To make things fairer for people on karts, the wheelies have much more restricted movement, and you’ll stop for a second or two after being hit while doing a wheelie. Some of the bikes can also turn tighter corners, but the bikes can only generate blue sparks while drifting; whereas the karts generate orange sparks, giving them an advantage in drifting. But, because of wheelies and the ability to turn tighter corners, bikes seem to be the vehicle of choice when it comes to the Time Trial mode.
Bikes are a fantastic addition to the series!
Also new is the trick system. Most of the tracks have had more ramps added to them. Once you’re off the ramp and in the air, you’ll have to shake the Wii Wheel/Wii remote/D-Pad in an up, sideways or down direction to do a trick. Not only do these look very flashy, but they also give you a short-lived boost, so you’ll have to do this as often as possible.
Mario Kart Wii gives you a lot of tracks to choose from; each of them incredibly well-done and elaborately designed. And whether you’re driving around the autumn leaves in Maple Treeway, or speeding down a waterfall in Koopa Cape, no two tracks look similar. Most of the tracks have been designed to feature shortcuts; meaning you should go around the track slowly to try and find them. There are a total of 32 tracks; with 16 brand new tracks and 16 that were featured in previous Mario Kart games. A lot of the older tracks have had some ramps added to them to make use of the trick system. Nintendo certainly don’t seem to be showing any signs of running out of creativity when it comes to level design.
Mario Kart Wii has some of the best tracks in Mario Kart history.
The tracks feature some very nice looking environments. While they’re not incredibly detailed, they have some nice looking textures for a Wii game, and use the bloom effects well in most cases. However, for a few tracks, Nintendo added a tad too much bloom. The character models aren’t too good, though. Most of them are poorly done with choppy edges; and a few of them being on par with the DS versions character models. In short; the graphics are a mixed bag, with some great environments but the designers must have left the character models until the last few minutes or so. This is made more disappointing by the fact that it’s a first-party Nintendo game. Nintendo have made superior graphics while working with the Gamecube.
Snaking is something which has been pointed out as a major flaw in Mario Kart DS. It consisted of shaking the D-Pad left and right to achieve a quick boost. People normally do this so fast that it can be done several times in a matter of seconds, and the movements resembled that of a snake slithering along the track. It wasn't a technique new to the DS version; in fact it was featured in previous Mario Kart games. But the problem was highlighted with Mario Kart DS's online mode, as it was full of snakers. It made playing online a competition based solely on snaking, and ruined the online play for several people. Now you'll just have to hold the drift button and wait for the orange sparks (blue on the bikes) to appear. You can waggle the control stick to make the sparks appear faster, but they don't appear nearly as fast as they could in previous games. Two words: good riddance.
The game has a few different modes to choose from. There's the Grand Prix mode, which is basically the tournament mode, and is used to gain unlockables; such as karts, bikes and characters. Its difficulty levels are 50cc, 100cc and 150cc (easy, normal and hard respectively). And, presumably in an attempt to help you adjust to different vehicles, 50cc is karts only, 100cc is bikes only, and 150cc is both. Another part is the extra Mirror mode. Mirror mode is just 150cc, but horizontally flipped. Not only will you have to face the challenges of 150cc again, but you'll have to re-adjust to the tracks. If there’s one thing wrong with the Grand Prix, other than the lack of 2-4 player modes, is the wonky difficulty curve. The progression between 50cc and 100cc is smooth, but spikes once you get to 150cc. Long story short; the Grand Prix offers a bit too much challenge for some, but will keep you playing for quite a bit.
The multiplayer mode is what the series is famous for, and, like in Mario Kart DS, you can play offline and online. Offline is your standard split screen affair, as you would expect. Online play in Mario Kart Wii runs smoothly, and it's rare that you'll notice any lag; amazing considering the console’s poor reputation for online and the fact that it features 12 players online. When you start off playing Mario Kart Wii online, you’ll have 5,000 points. When you win you’ll gain points, and when you lose you’ll lose points. The amount of points you can lose for a loss seems odd, I’ve lost as many as 100 points on some occasions, which is completely ridiculous!
Connecting with friends still requires the friend code system, which is a slight annoyance. However, I’ve learned to accept that the system is not perfect; a fact that even Mr. Iwata has acknowledged before. When your friends are online, you can send them pre-written messages. The messages include the basic phrases that you would say before playing a Mario Kart game, and you can try to agree on what mode you want to play. While it’s a cool feature, I would have preferred to be able to use a USB keyboard, or at least type my own message.
The online is the best I've seen on the Wii.
New to the series is online battle mode. The battle mode in the game is decent, but it won't replace simple kart racing, for a few reasons. The stages are very large, being designed for twelve players. So, if you’re playing a 2 or 4 player battle, you’ll rarely bump into each other. Battle mode has been changed to be purely tem-based. I don't have a problem with team-based battle mode, but there should definitely have been a free-for-all option added to it. In balloon battle, you won’t die when you lose all of your balloons. All that happens is your team loses one point.
Another new feature is the Time Trial mode. The time trial mode is a great addition, and a reason to come back to the game. You'll obviously have to go through stages slowly, and observe them to see if you can find shortcuts to exploit in order to achieve a faster time. The game comes with ghost data from Nintendo staff. There are two for each stage, normal ghost data, and expert ghost data when you've beat the normal ghost data. You're rewarded with unlockables for completing certain time trials. That's not all. You can download a friend’s ghost data, race against your own fastest ghost data, and even upload your ghost data to Nintendo's servers and compare them with the best of the best. I find that watching the replays of the top ranking ghost data in the leaderboards are a good way of finding shortcuts for different stages.
Prepare to have your karting ambitions crushed when you compare your lap times with those on the leaderboards...
Previous Mario Kart iterations have had the concept of different items to mix things up a bit, while still holding closely to their chests the 'skill factor'. This meant, while the items still helped, the key element to karting success was practise and skill. Now that the Wii version has arrived, Nintendo felt it necessary to even the playing field a bit more, which brings up my first, biggest problem with Mario Kart Wii. At times, the game can feel more based on who can get the better items as opposed to actual skill. Certain items are overly powerful, like the mega mushroom. Also, if you get hit by an item, there’s no short period of invulnerability. This gives you little time to get back on your feet, and leaves you open for a barrage of green and red shells just after you’ve been hit.
The problem is highlighted in 150cc. Even if you’re in first place, this type of thing can put you down to sixth or seventh place, and this can cause some extremely frustrating defeats. Unfortunately, instances like those are not rare in the game. On occasion, the cheap and rubber banding A.I can be so frustrating that it can overshadow the fun. It doesn’t get that bad often, but if it happens at all, something must have gone wrong somewhere along the line. A shame, because Mario Kart Wii could have achieved a far, far higher score had 150cc been less relentless and unfair.
In short; the frantic karting gameplay was tripped up by the unparalleled levels of frustration felt during the 150cc and Mirror Modes. However, no matter how many times I threw my Wii remote and nunchuck to the ground in frustration, I’d always be quick to pick it back up and start playing again; for a number of reasons. When you’re not in the unforgiving 150cc and Mirror modes, the gameplay is very fun; at times nearing Super Mario Galaxy as the most fun I have had on the Wii.
In good old Nintendo fashion, Mario Kart Wii features some great, catchy music, some of which give a musical hint or two to different Mario games. The music’s theme is more techno pop. Although it’s great, it only uses MIDI instruments.
The new Rainbow road has a few musical hints to Good Egg Galaxy.
A feature that has been anticipated is the Mario Kart Channel. It’s a new channel you can install to your Wii Menu where you can access the leaderboards and rankings, see what different competitions are going on and see if any of your friends are online without actually inserting the disc. It seems pointless for me, because there’s an option on the game menu where you can access all this information anyway. A bonus to actually downloading the channel is that you get a message sent to your Wii Message Board from Nintendo alerting you about a new competition. The competitions are all very different, and occur on a monthly basis. They normally consist of a task you have to do, and you can upload your fastest time to Nintendo’s leaderboards. It’s a great new feature, and is bound to add some longevity to the game. However, I would have enjoyed being able to replay the challenges from previous competitions, or at least had some challenges included in the game.
Mario Kart Wii joins every game in the Wii series as one of the games to allow you to play as your Mii character. Their height class is determined by the height you registered for it in the Mii Channel. This is a decent addition to the roster, but I would much rather play as a different character. This is mainly because the Mii has one of the most annoying and completely random voices I have ever heard.
I recommend not playing as your Mii. Ever.
Mario Kart Wii, while coming close, fails to deliver the definitive Mario Kart experience that it had the potential to deliver. One thing I found upon reflection is that every aspect (bar the online) comes so close to amazing, but is let down by unnecessary touches and additions. There’s a reason Nintendo calls this game a bridge title: it offers a lot to both casual and hardcore fans, even more so than any other game in the series. It’s really easy for new players to ‘pick it up and play’ every now and again, but there’s still a lot to offer for the hardcore fans; for example, the time trial leaderboards and all the unlockables. Is Mario Kart Wii the definitive version of Mario Kart? No, but it comes very close and despite its flaws, it’s one of the best games in the series.
Overall
+ The classic Mario Kart gameplay remains intact, with some cool new features
+ Amazing track design
+ The environments are very pretty...
- ... But the character models are poor
- Rubber banding A.I makes the 150cc and Mirror modes a huge pain
- The battle mode isn’t doing too well here
Mario Kart Wii, like the other games in the series, doesn't have any kind of story. There's still no explanation for why they take karting; something that’s supposed to be a fun past-time, so seriously. Even your beloved hero: Mario will use every dirty trick in the book to win the race. Call me old fashioned, but that's just the way I like my Mario Kart games. But, if anyone can come up with any sort of hypothesis for why they take karting so seriously, I'd be glad to hear it!
The Mario Kart series consists of your favourite Mario, and even Donkey Kong characters (as well as some characters which have nothing to do with Mario himself) coming together for some fast-paced and hectic kart racing. They'll be prepared to use anything they can get their hands on to win the race, mainly items. You can get items by driving through the item boxes, but you’ll have to watch out for the fake item boxes. The phrases "It's the taking part that counts" and "Slow and steady wins the race" have never and, thankfully, still don’t apply to Mario Kart games. With a total of 25 characters; Mario Kart Wii features one of the best rosters of characters in any Mario Kart game! The characters are split into three different height classes; small, medium and big. The different classes get the access to different bikes and karts.
Yoshi and many others return for Mario Kart Wii!
The items are all unique and have different effects. There’s the classic items like the mushroom; which gives you a boost, the star; which makes you faster and invincible. There are also some new items like the mega mushroom from New Super Mario Bros; which makes you much larger and able to squash enemies, and the POW block; which shakes everyone around except for the person who activates it. Oh, and there’s one more new item; the thunder cloud. When you get this item, and then the cloud will appear above you. It’ll give you a few seconds to pass it on to another player by bumping into them, but if it’s above you when the time runs out, you’ll shrink! It makes you slightly faster so you have more of a chance to pass it on, but the majority of the times you get it; you’ll be shrunk by it.
Mario Kart Wii is the game that introduces the Wii Wheel, essentially another plastic shell for your Wii remote to slot into. The Wii Wheel itself looks nice and simple, with a hole in the back to put your wrist strap through and a blue circle at the back saying Wii inside of it. When actually playing the game, I find it’s not the best way to play the game. It’s fun at first, but the novelty of ‘getting behind the wheel’ wears thin after about five minutes. The game sometimes doesn’t register what direction you’re trying to go in, and feels awkward at time. So, the Wii Wheel goes into my pile of unloved Wii accessories. Thankfully, you don’t have to play with the Wii Wheel; as Nintendo have given you some other options. You can play with the Gamecube controller, the Classic controller, and, my personal favourite; the Wii remote and nunchuck combination.
Unfortunately, the Wii Wheel is too unprecise at times.
The changes in Mario Kart are usually small, but effective changes. These changes, while not being too drastic, still keep the chaotic and classic Mario Kart feel intact, but enhance it to keep things fresh. Don’t worry; Mario Kart Wii is no exception. The game new features 12 players as opposed to 8 players in the previous game. This being on the Wii, the motion controls have been added, which I’ve already explained. The biggest addition to the series is being able to ride bikes. This stands next to the two players to one kart mechanic in Double Dash as one of the most controversial changes in Mario Kart history. Its announcement was the cause for concern of some veterans, but you can rest assured that it doesn’t turn the Mario Kart you once loved into something that’s gone horribly wrong. In fact, the bikes are very good. I would go so far as to say they are better than the karts, and are a great addition to the series!
So, other than design, what’s the difference? Well, the bikes can do wheelies, giving you a slight, but noticeable speed increase. To make things fairer for people on karts, the wheelies have much more restricted movement, and you’ll stop for a second or two after being hit while doing a wheelie. Some of the bikes can also turn tighter corners, but the bikes can only generate blue sparks while drifting; whereas the karts generate orange sparks, giving them an advantage in drifting. But, because of wheelies and the ability to turn tighter corners, bikes seem to be the vehicle of choice when it comes to the Time Trial mode.
Bikes are a fantastic addition to the series!
Also new is the trick system. Most of the tracks have had more ramps added to them. Once you’re off the ramp and in the air, you’ll have to shake the Wii Wheel/Wii remote/D-Pad in an up, sideways or down direction to do a trick. Not only do these look very flashy, but they also give you a short-lived boost, so you’ll have to do this as often as possible.
Mario Kart Wii gives you a lot of tracks to choose from; each of them incredibly well-done and elaborately designed. And whether you’re driving around the autumn leaves in Maple Treeway, or speeding down a waterfall in Koopa Cape, no two tracks look similar. Most of the tracks have been designed to feature shortcuts; meaning you should go around the track slowly to try and find them. There are a total of 32 tracks; with 16 brand new tracks and 16 that were featured in previous Mario Kart games. A lot of the older tracks have had some ramps added to them to make use of the trick system. Nintendo certainly don’t seem to be showing any signs of running out of creativity when it comes to level design.
Mario Kart Wii has some of the best tracks in Mario Kart history.
The tracks feature some very nice looking environments. While they’re not incredibly detailed, they have some nice looking textures for a Wii game, and use the bloom effects well in most cases. However, for a few tracks, Nintendo added a tad too much bloom. The character models aren’t too good, though. Most of them are poorly done with choppy edges; and a few of them being on par with the DS versions character models. In short; the graphics are a mixed bag, with some great environments but the designers must have left the character models until the last few minutes or so. This is made more disappointing by the fact that it’s a first-party Nintendo game. Nintendo have made superior graphics while working with the Gamecube.
Snaking is something which has been pointed out as a major flaw in Mario Kart DS. It consisted of shaking the D-Pad left and right to achieve a quick boost. People normally do this so fast that it can be done several times in a matter of seconds, and the movements resembled that of a snake slithering along the track. It wasn't a technique new to the DS version; in fact it was featured in previous Mario Kart games. But the problem was highlighted with Mario Kart DS's online mode, as it was full of snakers. It made playing online a competition based solely on snaking, and ruined the online play for several people. Now you'll just have to hold the drift button and wait for the orange sparks (blue on the bikes) to appear. You can waggle the control stick to make the sparks appear faster, but they don't appear nearly as fast as they could in previous games. Two words: good riddance.
The game has a few different modes to choose from. There's the Grand Prix mode, which is basically the tournament mode, and is used to gain unlockables; such as karts, bikes and characters. Its difficulty levels are 50cc, 100cc and 150cc (easy, normal and hard respectively). And, presumably in an attempt to help you adjust to different vehicles, 50cc is karts only, 100cc is bikes only, and 150cc is both. Another part is the extra Mirror mode. Mirror mode is just 150cc, but horizontally flipped. Not only will you have to face the challenges of 150cc again, but you'll have to re-adjust to the tracks. If there’s one thing wrong with the Grand Prix, other than the lack of 2-4 player modes, is the wonky difficulty curve. The progression between 50cc and 100cc is smooth, but spikes once you get to 150cc. Long story short; the Grand Prix offers a bit too much challenge for some, but will keep you playing for quite a bit.
The multiplayer mode is what the series is famous for, and, like in Mario Kart DS, you can play offline and online. Offline is your standard split screen affair, as you would expect. Online play in Mario Kart Wii runs smoothly, and it's rare that you'll notice any lag; amazing considering the console’s poor reputation for online and the fact that it features 12 players online. When you start off playing Mario Kart Wii online, you’ll have 5,000 points. When you win you’ll gain points, and when you lose you’ll lose points. The amount of points you can lose for a loss seems odd, I’ve lost as many as 100 points on some occasions, which is completely ridiculous!
Connecting with friends still requires the friend code system, which is a slight annoyance. However, I’ve learned to accept that the system is not perfect; a fact that even Mr. Iwata has acknowledged before. When your friends are online, you can send them pre-written messages. The messages include the basic phrases that you would say before playing a Mario Kart game, and you can try to agree on what mode you want to play. While it’s a cool feature, I would have preferred to be able to use a USB keyboard, or at least type my own message.
The online is the best I've seen on the Wii.
New to the series is online battle mode. The battle mode in the game is decent, but it won't replace simple kart racing, for a few reasons. The stages are very large, being designed for twelve players. So, if you’re playing a 2 or 4 player battle, you’ll rarely bump into each other. Battle mode has been changed to be purely tem-based. I don't have a problem with team-based battle mode, but there should definitely have been a free-for-all option added to it. In balloon battle, you won’t die when you lose all of your balloons. All that happens is your team loses one point.
Another new feature is the Time Trial mode. The time trial mode is a great addition, and a reason to come back to the game. You'll obviously have to go through stages slowly, and observe them to see if you can find shortcuts to exploit in order to achieve a faster time. The game comes with ghost data from Nintendo staff. There are two for each stage, normal ghost data, and expert ghost data when you've beat the normal ghost data. You're rewarded with unlockables for completing certain time trials. That's not all. You can download a friend’s ghost data, race against your own fastest ghost data, and even upload your ghost data to Nintendo's servers and compare them with the best of the best. I find that watching the replays of the top ranking ghost data in the leaderboards are a good way of finding shortcuts for different stages.
Prepare to have your karting ambitions crushed when you compare your lap times with those on the leaderboards...
Previous Mario Kart iterations have had the concept of different items to mix things up a bit, while still holding closely to their chests the 'skill factor'. This meant, while the items still helped, the key element to karting success was practise and skill. Now that the Wii version has arrived, Nintendo felt it necessary to even the playing field a bit more, which brings up my first, biggest problem with Mario Kart Wii. At times, the game can feel more based on who can get the better items as opposed to actual skill. Certain items are overly powerful, like the mega mushroom. Also, if you get hit by an item, there’s no short period of invulnerability. This gives you little time to get back on your feet, and leaves you open for a barrage of green and red shells just after you’ve been hit.
The problem is highlighted in 150cc. Even if you’re in first place, this type of thing can put you down to sixth or seventh place, and this can cause some extremely frustrating defeats. Unfortunately, instances like those are not rare in the game. On occasion, the cheap and rubber banding A.I can be so frustrating that it can overshadow the fun. It doesn’t get that bad often, but if it happens at all, something must have gone wrong somewhere along the line. A shame, because Mario Kart Wii could have achieved a far, far higher score had 150cc been less relentless and unfair.
In short; the frantic karting gameplay was tripped up by the unparalleled levels of frustration felt during the 150cc and Mirror Modes. However, no matter how many times I threw my Wii remote and nunchuck to the ground in frustration, I’d always be quick to pick it back up and start playing again; for a number of reasons. When you’re not in the unforgiving 150cc and Mirror modes, the gameplay is very fun; at times nearing Super Mario Galaxy as the most fun I have had on the Wii.
In good old Nintendo fashion, Mario Kart Wii features some great, catchy music, some of which give a musical hint or two to different Mario games. The music’s theme is more techno pop. Although it’s great, it only uses MIDI instruments.
The new Rainbow road has a few musical hints to Good Egg Galaxy.
A feature that has been anticipated is the Mario Kart Channel. It’s a new channel you can install to your Wii Menu where you can access the leaderboards and rankings, see what different competitions are going on and see if any of your friends are online without actually inserting the disc. It seems pointless for me, because there’s an option on the game menu where you can access all this information anyway. A bonus to actually downloading the channel is that you get a message sent to your Wii Message Board from Nintendo alerting you about a new competition. The competitions are all very different, and occur on a monthly basis. They normally consist of a task you have to do, and you can upload your fastest time to Nintendo’s leaderboards. It’s a great new feature, and is bound to add some longevity to the game. However, I would have enjoyed being able to replay the challenges from previous competitions, or at least had some challenges included in the game.
Mario Kart Wii joins every game in the Wii series as one of the games to allow you to play as your Mii character. Their height class is determined by the height you registered for it in the Mii Channel. This is a decent addition to the roster, but I would much rather play as a different character. This is mainly because the Mii has one of the most annoying and completely random voices I have ever heard.
I recommend not playing as your Mii. Ever.
Mario Kart Wii, while coming close, fails to deliver the definitive Mario Kart experience that it had the potential to deliver. One thing I found upon reflection is that every aspect (bar the online) comes so close to amazing, but is let down by unnecessary touches and additions. There’s a reason Nintendo calls this game a bridge title: it offers a lot to both casual and hardcore fans, even more so than any other game in the series. It’s really easy for new players to ‘pick it up and play’ every now and again, but there’s still a lot to offer for the hardcore fans; for example, the time trial leaderboards and all the unlockables. Is Mario Kart Wii the definitive version of Mario Kart? No, but it comes very close and despite its flaws, it’s one of the best games in the series.
Overall
+ The classic Mario Kart gameplay remains intact, with some cool new features
+ Amazing track design
+ The environments are very pretty...
- ... But the character models are poor
- Rubber banding A.I makes the 150cc and Mirror modes a huge pain
- The battle mode isn’t doing too well here
