Mario Kart Wii

Mario Kart may be described as the ultimate multiplayer game. It’s hectic, unfair and damn right fun races all add up to make a perfect multiplayer experience. But there is one game that takes up all of Mario Karts multiplayer lime-light, which is Super Smash Bros. And it is fair to say that Super Smash Bros Brawl has taken all of Mario Kart’s glory. So much so, that it seems that Mario Kart Wii has come out of no where. Well, we wont be seeing Brawl for two months now, so it’s time for Mario Kart Wii to shine, and it does that pretty well.

The games biggest selling point is the Wii Wheel. Which, like the Zapper, is a plastic shell to put your Wii mote into. And to be brutally honest, like the zapper, the game is better is better off without it. To be even more brutal, it’s even better using a Gamecube controller or a classic controller. I’m not sure why though, it just doesn’t feel right. Many times I have given up trying to get round a track without barriers, due to getting pushed off. It may just take time to get used to the Wii Wheel, but using the Classic Controller feels so much more natural to use than the wheel. It may just be down to personal preference, but for me the Wii Wheel is a no-go.

So, what does this game offer, that the others didn’t? Well, the biggest additions are Bikes and the ability to pull off tricks. The bikes are a nice addition. They are much more manoeuvrable than the karts, which is helps to get past your opponents easier. And as for tricks, well they are actually quite an essential way of winning a race. Because when you pull a trick, you get a speed boost. But you can only pull of tricks when you go up a ramp, or a bump. You have to pull the trick off right at the start of the jump. Which can feel unresponsive with the Wheel, as you have to flick the Wheel up. But with the Classic controller all you have to do is press up on the D - Pad. The game also supports 12 player races, instead of the traditional 8 players. The game also adds some new tracks and weapons, as with all new addition to the series. Shamefully they have kept that damn Blue Shell.

There are 32 track in total, 16 are new and16 are old. The minority are pretty bad like Wario Mines and Grumble Volcano. But there are some good ones like Daisy Circuit and Koopa Cape. But then there are new circuits that add to little series of circuits like, a FOURTH Mario and Bowser Circuit, isn’t three enough? Why not create brand new tracks, instead of putting time into re-making old, tired circuits. But quite a few times, I find myself moaning when a track appears because they can be too harsh. Take Grumble Volcano for example. The some of the ground falls off, and there are lots of fiery rocks being hurled everywhere. And don’t get me started on Rainbow Road. These tracks can be a bit big at times, they are designed to be 12 player tracks , so playing online with a small amount of people can feel lonely,

There are 22 characters available in Mario Kart Wii. 12 are ready do go from the get go. Some of these characters include some obvious characters such as Mario, Luigi and Yoshi. And when you actually start to unlock some characters you start too see how overloaded the roster is. There are lots of characters that don’t deserve to be in the game, and some of these characters take crazy lengths to unlock them. Take Toadette for example, you either need to do a Time Trial on all 32 tracks, or win 1000 times online. You would have to be a serious completest to do that. They have also utilised Mii’s into the game. So now you can drive your selected Mii around with Mario and co. Which is a great little feature, especially when you have created a Mii based on someone like Zoidburg from Futurama, it’s pretty damn epic. There are three different weight classes, Small (Baby Mario ect), Medium (Mario ect) and Large (Wario ect). You can only use certain bikes and karts for each weight class.

All together there are 4 game modes, Grand Prix, Time Trial, Versus, and Battle. In Grand Prix there are 3 classes. 50CC where you can only use karts, 100CC where you can only use bikes and 150CC where you can use both. I think this is quite a bad choice, as say if someone new to the game beats 50CC and is used to Karts, they will have to get used to bikes, which are quite hard to get used to, on an upped difficulty level. Following the previous games, each difficulty class has 8 cups, in two groups (in this game : the Wii Cup and Retro Cup). There are 4 races in each cup, and each race is 3 laps long. And when you finish the cup, you get graded. The grades go from E to 3 Stars. The traditional Mario Kart format, it’s simple, it works well, so why change it? Time Trail, simple really. You go round a selected track as fast as you can. When you have done your fastest lap, it gets saved as a ghost. For those who don’t know what a ghost is, a Ghost is a copy of your fastest lap, which you have to try and beat. Verses is practically the same as GP mode just with 2 to 4 player spit screen, and AI (which is optional). The price of the split screen is a much lower frame rate. And lastly Battle Mode, there are two options to choose from, Balloon Battle and Coin Runner. So, Balloon Battle, you are separated into teams and you are given 3 balloons each, when someone from the other team hits you, your balloon pops. When all of your balloons have been popped, you are given more balloons and have to continue. when the time limit ends, the team that has popped most balloons wins. And coin runner, where there are coins scattered around in a small map, you have to find these coins and keep them. If a player bumps into you, you lose the coin and they get it. At the end of the time limit, the team with most coins wins. The thing is that it is mandatory to play in teams, instead of free for all in older games. Which I think was better, it added more caution to the game.

We know what the Wii is capable of graphically, when you looks at the likes of Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3, they push the console to it’s limits. And to be fair most of the AAA games look pretty damn good for the console. But Mario kart is disappointing. It looks no better than Double Dash. They didn’t put any effort into making this game looks good at all. And the character selection screen looks awful. The characters look really blocky, you can see that Nintendo rushed it to get it out on time. The music is the usual Mario Music, upbeat and chirpy. Some of the soundtrack can get on yours nerves, but that is to be expected with most Nintendo games.

Nintendo really can’t claim to be very good at the online. Most of the games lag and disconnect. But Mario Kart Wii is a nice surprise. It runs very smoothly, and the match making system works really well. And if someone decides to leave the game, it wont effect anything. There are two game modes, GP and Battle Mode. The game runs on a point system. If you win become first and fifth (using an example of a 12 player race) you get points. If you come sixth and seventh you get 0 points. And if you come eighths to last, you loose points. You start off with 5000 on both GP mode and Battle mode. The game lets you also install a Mario Kart channel. The Mario Kart channel basically lets you see leader boards from all around the world. You can also send ghosts to your friends. So the online is very good, If Nintendo can do this with Brawl, then they might have cracked online gaming.

So, Mario Kart Wii is a very enjoyable game. The Wii Wheel my be a bit of a blip, and the graphics have had nothing put into them. But Nintendo isn’t about how good the graphics are, they are about pure enjoyment and fun. And this game offers plenty of that.