Mario Kart Wii

"Almost the best game in the saga."

I don't know what to say for Mario Kart Wii. There have been major and minor step-ups, disappointments and triumphs, and annoyances and pleasures in this series. Thankfully Nintendo has been able to balance them out. The biggest change from Mario Kart DS is the bikes. Without them, the game would have a bit of a worse score, considering they add a lot of variety to the series. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a review to write.

Pros:
The Bikes-add spice to the series
The Courses- (16 new, 16 old, 96 laps of entertainment)
The Control-4 methods (I question Nintendo's idea of having 4 control options for this game)
The Items-just as irritating and useful in the rest of the series as they are now
The Character Variety (32, some classic, some new, and they come with hidden bonuses!)
The NEW Drifting Concept (there's automatic for the newbies and manual for the hardcore racers, and I'll explain more later)
The modes (The same as they were in the series, with a slight refinement)
Graphics (has anybody noticed that the game actually looks like a cartoon in HD?)
The choices of vehicles (there's a total of 36 cars, but they're separated into weight class, not character)

Cons:
Frustrating AI (they can pound you with items)
The Character Variety (Why would Nintendo add new people in from some random games?)
The Items (see above)
The Wii wheel, probably the first control mechanism you'll ever use in the game (it's too small)

Nintendo has never been good on graphics, especially if you look at Mario Kart DS (notice the jagged edges). But this time, I think they've caught up to the rest of the 7th Gen consoles. For one, the curves aren't noticeable, even on a TV that's really old and doesn't have a giant amount of pixels. Also, the game is so detailed, you could notice the design of the track below you, whether it's cobblestone, sand, street, or even grass. Nintendo also managed to get 3D graphics in the game now, which greatly affects the design. The colors also look as realistic as nature. Lava has that glowing, eye burning orange, the grass is a natural, ripe green, and the sky looks normally blue, not just something that looks like the sun's only a mile away from the sky. The only thing that puts a dent in the value is that it doesn't look too realistic, with the smooth curves, extreme detail, and the blurs of going whatever 100 mph looks like in the game. But hey, it's a cartoon, why would it look anything like reality?

First and Foremost, the thing that gives the biggest dent to this game's arcade resemblance is the computer driven people. To put it simply, they are horrible. They'll always be bringing up your rear, sniffing your kart's/bike's exhaust fumes, just waiting for you to hit or be hit by an exposed item and pass you. Sometimes it's possible to drop back 4 or 5 spots, but I never have that happen. Speaking of items, they smash you with them, especially in this mode called 150cc. They won't throw banana peels at you because they do the least damage. What they do throw at you every 15 seconds are green, red, and the dreaded blue shells, bombs, lightning bolts, an occasional POW block (new to the series), and a mutated giant kart using a giant mushroom (also new). The blue shell has been Mario Kart's worst idea EVER. Picture this: you're in first, with a comfy 5 second lead over 2nd place on the third lap. You're around 50 feet from the finish line when a blue shell hits you. Your 5 second lead has been cut to nothing, and then your opponents nail you with 3 red shells, all back to back to back, throwing you down to 8th. Blue shells are the winning person's nightmare and everybody else's blessing. And the item assortment is good, but in different areas it's terrible. In first or second, you're limited to the stupid bananas and the shells (except the blue and most of the time the triple everything). From 3rd down, you're treated with mushrooms (like steroids hidden in an innocent fungi, but in short bursts), the blooper (which I never found useful), and the giant mushroom, and don't ever get me started on the star and bullet bill. They are helpful in the lowest places, but if you see one coming, move out of the way or get whacked. You could have a lightning bolt and you get whacked by a bullet bill and then you lose it.
Since I'm done ranting about the ugly, I can try to talk about the good. The characters have funny voices, although they sound fitting. If you bump into a cart without an item, they can make honking noises that aren't supposed to be there. And you will get slowed down by the terrain. The obstacles are what you will find in arcade games like Yoshi's Island 3 or Super Mario Bros, but they're all in 3D. Except the cardboard cutout backgrounds.

The main racing in the game is divided into 3 engine speeds, namely 50cc, 100cc, and 150cc. If you're racing in the Grand Prix mode, this translates into easy, normal, and hard. Speaking of Grand Prix, I'm going to elaborate on that first. This is the main place to go if you want to unlock a whole mess of characters, karts, and bikes. You race in 8 separate cups, 4 races each, for a total 32 set tracks, with 3 laps each. 16 have been designed especially for the Wii only, and 16 have been resurrected from the previous 5 games in the series. You can use any character and vehicle you unlocked. To win you have to have the highest amount of set points. The biggest difference in the Grand Prixs are the amount of opponents. Suddenly they've jumped from 8 to 12, which makes the highest points one could get in a race is 15, not the original 10.

50cc Grand Prix allows you to drive only karts. This is the classic way of doing things, as only karts have showed up in the last 5 games. Everything's really slow, so you can take it easy in this mode. Barely anything comes your way, and the AI hit almost everything you deploy. This mode is the easiest, and it should be everybody's first choice either so they can get over with it or the new people can learn the game. I found this mode something like Geico: It's so easy, a caveman could do it.

100cc Grand Prix allows you to drive only Bikes. This is the most important way to do things, as you should be fairly acquainted with bikes to be able to finish off the time trials with ease, finish the game, and win online, which I'll explain later. You drive like a normal person here, probably going no faster than a city street's speed limit. The "hit by item" frequency is stepped up a notch and the AI get a bit harder but not frustrating to defeat. This mode shouldn't be much of a problem if you completed 50cc. I had no major issues winning in this mode.

150cc Grand Prix allows you to drive both Karts and Bikes. 150cc is the MOST frustrating class in the game. For one, you're going as fast as your parents drive on the highway if they're going by the speed limit, and you're going to need lightning reflexes to live. I'd recommend using bikes to survive, or else good luck getting out of the grass. The "hit by item" frequency is cranked to almost 85%, and the AI become something like elite street racers, and you're pretty much a newbie to them. Honestly, I've been able to get high rankings on this mode, but it took a lot of time and thinking. This mode is A BIG PROBLEM. Nintendo should have fixed this mode so that the odds are slightly more towards your favor and that you wouldn't be swearing at some of the most innocent characters in the game.

You're alone on a course of your desire in Time Trials. Your goal is to beat a time that Nintendo's workers achieve in whatever avatar and kart/bike you want while giving you a challenge to beat yourself (if you set a time) and the rest of the world. You do get rewards for doing certain things, but they aren't as great in number as compared to the Grand Prix's. You can also download ghosts from around the world via the Mario Kart channel, which will eventually be explained in this review. Basically you're given three mushrooms to use around the track three times in wherever you feel, but you can figure out where to use them as so to get the best times ever! People new to the series or even to racing might not want to come here at their first try, mainly because nothing's unlocked. You can try when you think you have enough experience and you have the best cars.

VS mode is where you can race against all 11 opponents (in teams if you want), but you get to decide the ground rules. You can use anything you want. This is also the place to race up to 3 of your other friends, if they come, by selecting Multiplayer mode on the main menu, then finding the amount of people playing (from 2-4). You can come here alone to just get everybody that you can't unlock in the championships, but that will take some time, and it'd just be better for you to improve your game. Normally 50cc is easy, 100cc is normal, and 150cc is mind-boggling, but here you can make 50cc normal, 100cc mind boggling, and 150cc easy as pie. There are a variety of rules to change, such as engine class, course selection, amount of tracks in one series, etc. I use this mode to get away from the craziness of 150cc Grand Prixs and to jumble things around a bit. Give this mode a try when you have bored friends!

Just like VS mode, in Battle Mode, you're driving against 11 opponents, and you can invite your friends to play, but the emphasis isn't on going around a track. Now we have arenas ideal for throwing items at everybody. You play in teams, and the point isn't to have the most people run over your dropped items (although you can aim for this), the point is to be the team with the most people running over everybody's dropped items on the opposing team. You're limited to only the Standard Kart and Bike for this mode, but they do have balanced stats for the person new to Mario Kart. There are 10 stages in all, 5 for the Wii and 5 taken from the rest of the games (SNES, GBA, N64, GameCube, and DS). There are 3 major differences from the rest of the series in this game's battle mode. The first is that the Balloon Battle, most likely the better one of the game (hit people with items until they run out of balloons) doesn't mean the end of the world when you lose 3 of your balloons. The second is that the second option of battling is now Coin Runners (nab coins and steal them from other people by hitting them with items), a difference from the DS version's Shine Runners (nab Shines, or something that looks like a sun). The third one is that there's a time limit now of three minutes, whereas there was none in the other games. Like VS mode you can also edit the rules. I only use this mode when I grow tired of going around in a circle (maybe next time there can be a GTA/NFS/Midnight Club kind of thing where there's an open world!), and it doesn't cease to impress me, but it can be a hassle with the cheating AI.

The Wii Wheel is the first thing you'll probably try controlling your virtual person, and it's also the easiest. You place the Wiimote in something that resembles a steering wheel, and you drive the kart in the game like you drive a car in real life. This is probably the reason why a lot of kids like this game because of the ease of using the Wii Wheel. I used to use it, but a few weeks ago I switched to the Wiimote and Nunchuck, because of the Wii Wheel's only downside: people who have big hands can't grasp the thing easily. Nintendo should have made the thing with a grip, like the optional wireless controllers for the PS2. You also get a bonus online for using this a lot (which you probably won't)!

I like using the Wiimote and Nunchuck combined because your hands aren't confined to a tiny little controller. However this probably isn't the best option for someone with bad hand-eye coordination, mainly because of the lack of visible buttons. It's probably the 2nd best option out there for experts. The steering's also less natural, but that's the way it was in the previous series.

Pairing the Wiimote and the Classic Controller sure doesn't look fun. It has the buttons of the PS2 Dualshock (save L2 and R2), but it's shaped like an oval. I wouldn't recommend it because people might have a hard time looking for the buttons because of the controller's size and shape, thus impairing results of the game.

I didn't test the GameCube Controller, but it's probably the best thing out there. The shape adapts to everybody's hand size. The buttons aren't too confusing to find, and the joystick does make the steering look like something close to a joystick of a flight simulator. The only complaint some people would have of this option is that there's no sound or rumble, but then again, who needs the true effects of real life in a cartoon? Speaking of Sound...

The sound has the highest cartoon resemblance in the game. When you bump into another kart/bike, there can be a cute little horn going off. When you bump into a wall there's a satisfying thump. Plus, every character has a nice voice to it that we all know and love that suits the game very much. The only thing that can be realistic is the drifting: The rear tires screech just as good as they do in Need For Speed, Burnout, and Midnight Club. It actually sounds like you're using up the life of them as you gain that final mini-turbo. My only complaint is to make everything realistic

The music suits the stages very good, but not perfectly (considering it's a cartoon and Nintendo doesn't want to use licensed music). One stage called Rainbow Road has this feel like you're up in space; another one called DS Delfino Square feels like you're actually racing through a virtual marketplace (without running anybody over). Nintendo wants you to actually be there inside the brain of Yoshi when he's defending his home turf (DS Yoshi Falls).

This is the 2nd Mario Kart game to incorporate online multi-player into it. Up to 2 people can play on one system, and 12 people can play at once, anywhere in the world. You have 3 options of playing: Regional (beat everybody in your country and its vicinity), WorldWide (prove you're the best by surpassing that guy from Ecuador with the highest skill level), and Friends (get someone's friend code, register them, and then beat them). You start with 5000 VR, which is normal. Depending on your skill level, your VR can go up or down, which once again makes the online world unfair (that dude with 7976 VR gets only 1 VR added after winning while that guy with 2589 VR gets 100+ VR for getting 12TH). Last time I checked, I was somewhere around 7150+ VR (which is above average). I don't give this area a high rating because of the frequent disconnections. I may have a strong internet connection, but Nintendo must operate its online service underneath a rock, because people are frequently getting disconnected and losing 300+ VR. Other than that, I like it because I'm an unknown freak in the world and I like to show off...

Do I have to say how much you have to unlock to get the game completed? You only start with 12 Characters and 18 vehicles, only 1/2 the people and 1/2 the autos. You have a secret mode to unlock. You only start with the first 4 cups in every Grand Prix (50, 100, and 150cc). I should also mention there's a Mario Kart channel, complete with ghosts from everybody owning the game in the world, friend registration, time trial records from every area in the world, and even tournaments! Getting everything can take up to a month, and that's just for the pros. And there's a ranking system, ranging from 3 stars to E (best to worst), and you need to rank high to get everything. There's so much to do, especially considering you can play with friends.

Considering this is the 4th most bought game for the Wii, you should consider buying this game. It's a good laugh for the family, yet it gives a high enough competition feeling to make it a want for every racing master. The only thing that can prevent you is the $50 new price tag...
Cartoonish Feeling, Great Graphics, Anybody's control options. Anybody can know this game and not be able to play it in 10 minutes. Get Mario Kart today!

Graphics: 9/10
Arcade Feeling: 7/10
Racing: 9/10
Grand Prixs: 9/10
Time Trials: 9/10
VS: 10/10
Battle: 8/10
Controls: 7/10
Wii Wheel: 9/10
Wiimote+Nunchuck: 5/10
Wiimote+Classic Controller: 4/10
GameCube Controller: 9/10
Sound: 9/10
SFX: 9/10
Music: 9/10
Online: 7/10
Replay: 10/10

Final Score: 58/70, 8.3, or rounded off: 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/31/09

Game Release: Mario Kart Wii (US, 04/27/08)