Mario Kart Wii (Wii) Review

Posted by Ramon Aranda on 05.06.2008

Vitals

Genre	Racing
System	Nintendo Wii
Release Date	Q0 0000

Start your engines and shine up those red shells because it's Mario Kart time all over again!



Title: Mario Kart Wii
Publisher: Nintendo
Type: Racing
Players 1-4 (12-online)

Nintendo has been pumping out their AAA first-party titles as of late and there’s no sign of stopping so far. Mario Kart Wii is the latest of those titles and like many Wii fans, it was one that was on everyone’s wish list, way before it was even announced. We all knew it was eventually coming and it’s finally here. When it was announced that the game would also be featuring the Wii Wheel, well the anticipation grew and everyone wondered how the first non-traditional controlling Mario Kart would work. After spending more than enough quality time with the game, we can finally tell you how the latest entry in the Mario Kart franchise fairs on the Nintendo Wii.

Gameplay

From the beginning you begin with twelve characters: Baby Mario, Mario, Toad, Yoshi, Wario, Donkey Kong, Baby Peach, Koopa Troopa, Luigi , Peach , Waluigi and Bowser. As a mark for Koopa Troopa, it was nice to see him back in the game as we’ve seen other variations such as Koopa Paratroopa and Bones in other games. Each of the characters can hit the tracks with one of three available (at first) karts and three different bikes. There are some differences between the two choices besides looks of course. While the karts have tighter control, the bikes are a lot more sensitive but also give you the chance to make much tighter turns. The bike’s also allow you to pop willies by shaking the remote upwards, giving you a momentary speed burst – a great addition when you’re just inches away from another driver on the home stretch. You can drift with both the karts and the bikes to get a speed boost as well but with the karts, you can attain a super turbo boost by moving the remote left and right as in previous games. You’ll know you have it when the blue sparks turn yellow – something not possible with bikes.



When you’re ready to jump into a game, you can get into Grand Prix, Versus or Battle Mode. As you’d expect from GP, you’ll drive around through a gauntlet of tracks that vary from 16 new ones to 16 retro tracks bringing the total track number to 32 for this game. The tracks are broken down into 8 different cups, 4 of which are available from the beginning and each cup has 4 tracks to race through.. One thing I have to point out immediately however, is that 2-player GP was not included in the game which is a real bummer as I always had a blast playing with my brother in GP. Some may not care a whole lot, but others will likely be a bit disappointed.

After completing each cup, you’ll be ranked accordingly as in the DS version and you’ll also unlock different karts, characters (including your Miis!!) and cups to race in. Versus mode will allow you to play with up to four players and you can pick and choose any of the available tracks for a GP-style competition of four tracks. After looking around at the different game options, I was ready to get down with some Grand Prix.

Mario Kart Wii allows you to control the game via the nunchuck-Wii remote combination as well as the Classic Controller, Gamecube Controller and the Wii Wheel (which docks the Wii remote by itself). The question on everyone’s minds no doubt was how MK would control with the included wheel so I made that my first choice. First of all, the wheel is relatively light but feels pretty good once the Wii remote is in. There are no additional buttons on the wheel but it does give you a pretty nice grip of the remote for driving with this control setup. I actually tried racing with the Wii remote by itself ala Excite Truck and it didn’t work as well. After excessive playtime with the wheel, I’d have to say that I think it makes the game seem fresh and more enjoyable. It does take some getting used to especially for Mario Kart veterans but once you get the sensitivity of the wheel down, it’s hard to put it away. The wheel felt good in my hands though I could see it being more of a problem for players with larger hand – it’s built pretty tough and doesn’t seem like a cheap plastic casing. As you start getting into the 100cc and 150cc races, the wheel becomes a tad more difficult to control but isn’t anything you can’t perfect with enough practice. I must say though that controlling the bikes at higher speeds in some tracks can be extremely difficult as the sensitivity is much higher than driving in a kart. I then decided to compare the wheel with the other control options and I found the Gamecube controller to work best out of the other three options. However, having played with the wheel previously, the game just didn’t seem as enjoyable to me, in fact it felt like “just another Mario Kart game” which may not be such a bad thing but should be when you’ve got the Wii’s abilities.



As for the races themselves, you’ll be joined by 11 other racers making it a 12-man race. The action gets pretty wild and intense what with all the items flying around and karts bumping into you. I was pretty excited with the prospect of having 4 more karts on the track during a race and Nintendo has adjusted accordingly by adding a little more width to the tracks themselves. I feared that having so many karts going down a narrow part of the track would be hell but alas, that wasn’t the case. On the other hand, Mario Kart still suffers from some annoying A.I. You’ve all been there before – you are in first place and coming down the stretch when suddenly a blue shell nails you, allowing everyone to catch up. Perhaps you’re far enough ahead that it doesn’t make a difference but hey, here comes that lightning bolt or pair of red shells to knock you off your pedestal Mr. Tom Gordon. Yes those injustices still plague this version of MK. It’s something you may not come across right away, but after a while, you’ll find yourselves in that situation more often than not, causing you to pull your hair out. I understand that to make things fair and challenging, you need those kinds of things to happen. It can be fun and funny at the same time, but not when it happens too often. It’s one thing for that to happen in multiplayer games but the A.I. just seems unfair sometimes.

Speaking of multiplayer, again there is no GP mode but you can get it on in Versus mode or Battle Mode as well as online (yes, ONLINE). I explained Versus mode earlier but another option that’s present is team play. While in Versus or Battle mode, you can jump onto a team of 6 where you have the Blue Team taking on the Red Team. In Versus, you accumulate points after every race and those points get tallied up for each team. The ones with the most win; plain and simple. In Battle mode, you do the same but that isn’t really what I was hoping for. In previous titles, you get into battle mode and you it’s every man/woman/creature for himself. However, this version is a little bit different. Battle mode has two game types: balloon battles and coin collecting. Balloon Battles are the most fun of the two but there’s a twist. Each kart has three balloons as you’d expect and after getting hit you’ll lose one and the other team (yes it’s team play only) gains a point. After losing all of your balloons, you aren’t gone however as you come right back with three new balloons. What? Well when you return with three new ones, every time you get hit, you’ll now cause your team to lose a point. I’m not sure I like that too much personally. To me, if you get your three balloons popped, you should be gone but now you become a detriment to your team.

Online play: Now let’s get into the online aspect of the game which is what everyone is here for I’m sure. Before jumping online, you must choose your profile first. Before even beginning any kind of game, be it online or off line, players will choose a Mii Character to create a profile for Mario Kart and be given a driver’s license. That license will detail your progress in the game. You can have up to four different profiles set up and what’s really nice is that each profile contains its own personal Friend Code. Might seem like a bad idea but that’s actually pretty sweet. See each person who plays on your Wii can have their own separate buddy list to play – an option that I wish would have been implemented for Super Smash Bros. Brawl. If you have your friends’ Wii console codes, you can send them a message through Mario Kart to add you onto their MK friends list so you don’t have to necessarily type in their friend code in the game. I hope Nintendo offers this option on future online enabled games too.



When you’re ready to jump online, you can get into Versus matches, Battle Modes and Tournaments. In Versus, there is no set amount of tracks to race in and you don’t get points like you do in offline games. No, in online matches you have a Virtual Ranking much like in Tetris DS. Depending on how you perform, your ranking increases or decreases after every race. It would have been nice to get a standard Grand Prix online mode but this works too so I won’t complain. Players can jump in and out of matches as they please though you’ll have to wait for the beginning of a new race. Up to 12 players can compete in a match and you can either vote on the upcoming track or leave it as random. Though online matches are pretty damn fun, this is one game if there was any that absolutely would have benefited from online voice chat. If the game would have to have been delayed to get this option, I would have waited. This is a very social game and VoIP is sorely lacking and is a missed opportunity..

You can also race friends only by creating a room and inviting your friends over. Though voice chat is not included, text chat is; well sort of. You don’t get to type in whatever you want which sucks, so you have to choose from a list of predefined phrases. Blah! What you do get to see at least is where your opponents/friends are playing from. Before jumping into a new race, you’ll see where in the globe your fellow racers are from along with their Miis and profile names. After playing a couple of hours worth of multiplayer I’m happy to report that I did not come across any lag or disconnects.

Graphics

You’ll notice that there graphics seem to vary a little bit depending on what tracks you’re racing in. The 16 tracks that are brand new seem to have greater amounts of details, sharpness and color accuracy than the retro tracks. Some of the newer tracks look pretty darn good but even those don’t quite measure up to Mario Galaxy or Smash Bros. The retro tracks actually have kind of a smooth, softer tone to them like some kind of wonderland. I’m not sure why this was done and it kind of bugs me a little bit when you see that other tracks just look better.



On the other hand it’s nice to see some of the DS tracks brought over to the Wii version such as Yoshi Falls and Delfino Square which were two favorite tracks on the handheld version. These tracks are brought to life by the Wii’s horsepower and overall size, but some fans may be perturbed by the lack of pop from the overall graphics.

Sound

Playing on a surround system is such a big help especially when the extra speakers give you a hint as to where the other races are coming from. None of the characters speak really but their sound effects are pretty funny whether they are winning or getting destroyed on the track.

A cool addition is the sounds coming from the Wii remote. You’ll often hear small sound effects while racing but the one that helps is the buzzard that sounds off when there’s an incoming shell. I can’t tell you how many times that saved my ass as I pulled out a shell or banana peel just in time to block my rear. The track tunes are as catchy as ever and even the music from the menus are hard to resist.

Fun Factor

Whether you’re playing a local multiplayer game with up to 4 people via split screen or by yourself, the action never stops. It’s just as easy to gain first as it is to lose it especially with all the items available including new ones such as the POW block which knocks everyone silly while dropping their items in the process or the personal lightning bolt. When you come across that item, you’ll have a cloud following you around, getting ready to zap you with a thunder bolt which has the same effect as a regular bolt only it does damage to you. What you can do however is bump into someone else which in turn gives them the cloud. So you may see the cloud getting passed around until time runs out and someone ends up the size of an ant.



Another new item is the big mushroom which you may remember from New Super Mario Bros. The shell makes you excessively large and you can mow your opponents down with ease.

I must say that online play was by far my favorite part of the game. It’s entertaining to jump online finally and get to rip apart other racers in your quest for glory.

Lasting Appeal

There’s plenty to do with this version of Mario Kart. As always, you can get through each of the cups in the different classes but you’ll spend as much time just trying to unlock new vehicles and new characters. With online play, there’s no shortage of opponents this time around and Tournament play gives you a reason to keep coming back. With Tournaments, Nintendo will randomly pump out a challenge of sorts. This week the challenge is trying to get the fastest time on Mario Circuit. You can play it as often as you’d like and your best score will be uploaded onto the online leaderboards.

If that wasn’t enough, you can jump onto the Mario Kart Channel and enter tournaments or send messages as well while also sharing your Ghosts and pictures of your victories.

The 411

Mario Kart Wii is a fantastic addition to the franchise and the Wii Wheel gives it a breath of fresh air. With online matches and a myriad of options, gamers can be sure that there’s more than enough reasons to be playing this game over and over again. If you don’t already own Mario Kart Wii, do yourselves a favor and pick this one up ASAP.

See you on the track!

Graphics	8.5	Smooth clean look but some tracks lack the detail and punch of others
Gameplay	8.5	Wii Wheel make the game what it is. Some frustrating moments with A.I. and controls but smooth overall.
Sound	8.0	Sound from Wii remote speaker is a big help. Characters sound funny and lots of cool sound effects.
Lasting Appeal	10.0	Local multiplayer and online play will keep this around for a long time. Not to mention Tournaments and ghost sharing!
Fun Factor	9.0	Probably the most fun I've had on a Mario Kart game but some control issues and excruciating A.I. keep this from being a 10.
Overall	8.8   [ Very Good ]

Screenshots
All 9 Mario Kart Wii Screenshots