Mario Kart Wii – Race For Your Life. Charlie… I Mean Mario

Oh, how the mighty has fallen. Instead of following up on the successes of Mario Kart Double Dash for the Gamecube and Mario Kart for the Nintendo OS. Nintendo has hammered the notion into our old-school skull that the next iteration of Mario Kart will be tailor-made for the Nintendo Wii’s target spectators: your grandmother, mother, and siblings. No two-guys-one-cart action, no innovation and tweaks needed; just good old fashioned racing and item—using,,, only neutered so much that it loses meaning as being a skill-based racing game that can be enjoyed by all.

Blue Shell-shocked
Let’s emphasize the positives first though. The new tracks are superb. Even if they recycled a lot of the maps from the previous games (do we really want to see Ghost Valley or the GSA Mario Kart tracts? Really?), the new ones stand out like gems because of the multiple paths and shortcuts laid out, in addition to how said maps have subtle changes as you go through laps. Coconut Mall and Grumble Volcano are good examples that highlight these key components.

The addition of bikes, even if it’s seemingly out-of-place, is handled well. The bikes themselves are light, turn way sharper than the karts, and can speed-boost on a straight path via popping a wheelie, while at the same time requiring much more practice than the stable body of the kart. Plus, if you shake the Wii Wheel or Wiimote while jumping off of a ramp, you can do tricks which give you a speed boost upon landing.

The online multiplayer mode is also great and accessible. While adding Friend Codes might instill confusion among many you can choose to play with strangers around the world via a few clicks of the Wiimote. Regardless, the online experience is completely smooth with nary a hitch before, during, and after a race.
The new additions aren’t all a bed of roses and sunshine like the game’s art style and music. The plastic Wii Wheel that comes mandatory with the game is Nintendo’s way of making everyone play equally bad against each other with the same horrendous control scheme, lt is nice for a novelty l5- minute spin, but it you want to actually win, the Nunchuk and Wiimote is the way to go.
“Mario Kart Wii feels a little too shallow for its own good, thus alienating players who rely on their skill rather than luck when playing Mario Kart games.”

Nintendo’s further reinforcing of their egalitarian ruleset is also apparent with the game’s default item appearance rate in both single player and multiplayer mode. Until you’ve tuned down the settings in custom games, you’ll be screwed more often than usual with the first-place-seeking Blue Shells and the new-and-not-welcomed-at-all P-Block which stuns everyone and takes away the item they’re holding. Every race feels even more like arbitrary luck than previous Mario Karts. No need for actual practice on how to drift properly and get sparks, people; anyone can just set it to Automatic (for auto-drifting), hold the accelerate button, and pray for the best. Read the rest of this entry »

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