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.

Chop Shop Material
The online component and the new tracks are about the saving grace of this fallacious attempt at a next-gen Mario Kart. While I understand Nintendo policy of going back to basics, 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. However, it is still one of the better and well-made kart games in the market. It is just unfortunate that compared to the high-profile and polished gameplay of its gold-laden legacy, the latest Mario Kart feels content in claiming the bronze medal.

Luckily the Nintendo Wii is backwards-compatible, so you can go back and play the superior Mario Kart Double Dash instead.

So we’ve seen the old year out and are busy welcoming the new year in; it’s time to take stock, to draw up the lists of who topped what charts for last year. If you are a fan of Nintendo Wii games, here’s a chart you might appreciate. Wii Play is a blockbuster by any standard, having sold in excess of two million pieces this year. It couldn’t be as great as it was the previous year, which was about 50% northward of that figure, but it still is showing remarkably lasting appeal. Its popularity is helped along some would say, probably by the free inclusion of an extra Wii controller. The Wii Sports Resort title , like the first Wii Sports, does best with tightly-packed tiny games; with the Motion Plus peripheral attachments, of course, the game had to sell in excess of 2 million.

The Wii Fit is a reason why parents around the world make an exception for this game console, over others like the PS3. The Wii Fit has sold more than 8 million copies worldwide in the two years it has been around. The concept is pretty impressive in its ability to get people actually exercising. How much fun it is to exercise in front of your screen, and watch the character within do exactly as you do, and often instruct you on the your technique? This certainly is one of the best concepts of all Nintendo Wii games around; for an idea that was widely ridiculed when it first came out, they certainly are doing well.

The old Nintendo mainstay, Mario Brothers has made it over to the Wii too, of course – this time, with multi-player functionality. There are more than one million copies sold of this avatar of Mario; it surpassed all other Wii games to become the best-seller among all other Nintendo Wii games within two weeks of its release. For a game character that is 24 years old, this is quite impressive. The Mario Kart title on the Wii hasn’t let the Mario franchise down. It’s actually sold more than 2 million copies, and it sells for just as much today in retail as it did when it was first released nearly 2 years ago. Now that is saying something.

The Rock Band series for the Wii hits just the right note for the holidays. It has different genres for different tastes; the Lego Rock Band title is for little children, with visuals inspired by the building block classic, the Beatles Rock Band title is for admirers of the Fab four, and focuses exclusively on their hits, and the standard Rock Band 2 is for all headbanging enthusiasts. There is so much that can be done with a game console that allows for natural movement. The Wii is now the top-selling console in the world, ahead of the Xbox or the PS 3, and certainly is Nintendo’s best-selling idea. The versatility of the console and the wide variety of people it appeals to has to be one of the main reasons for it’s success. And these Nintendo Wii games have carried the torch for the motion sensing console so far; next year can only be better.

When the DS Lite first made its debut in the U.S., the only available color was the generic Polar White. This had some gamers grumbling, seeing as when the DS Lite was released into the market in Japan it came in the additional options of Ice Blue and Enamel Navy. Since then, the color scheme has been expanded and customers are able to choose models that better suit them.

One of the new colors is Coral Pink. A Coral Pink DS Lite is really just a pink DS Lite rather than coral colored. It’s never been said outright, but it’s pretty obvious that the purpose of the pink DS Lite is to attract female gamers. When you see the DS Lite on TV, it’s pretty unlikely that you’ll see commercials with guys crowded around a pink DS Lite and having a blast. It’s more likely to be girls playing games like Nintendogs and Cooking Mama.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with a pink DS Lite—definitely there are girls and yes, some guys that it will appeal to and it’s just a matter of preference. However, it’s kind of eye-rolling when companies insinuate that all girls will gravitate to “girly” colors and games. Some girls will play Nintendogs on a pink DS Lite, and other girls might play The Legend of Zelda on a black one. Or some girls might play The Legend of Zelda on a pink DS Lite and vice versa. And some guys might play Nintendogs on a black DS Lite, and…you get the idea. The point is that gaming, like many other things in life, isn’t a dichotomy and again like many other things in life, it gets dichotomized.

It’s not that Nintendo should stop marketing the pink DS Lite to girls—it’s that they should market it to everyone. Because as things are now, God forbid you should see a guy going near anything pink. Granted, such stigma has considerably decreased in recent times but it’s still there. A guy being able to wear a pink shirt might pass as metrosexual manliness but it wouldn’t fly as well if he was surrounded by pink and sparkles and domestic activities. In fact, a guy wearing a pink shirt possibly enforces gender dichotomy even more as if to say, a guy is and should be so masculine that even when he wears a pink shirt he maintains that masculinity.

Overanalyzing a piece of machinery? Maybe, but you can’t deny that media is pervasive and its influence goes undetected. In the meantime, the pink DS Lite is available at a store near you or online for discreet purchase.

The members of the original Nintendo generation have begun to enter their 20s and 30s. Many of them even have children of their own. For many, the onset of adult life comes with an occasional desire to revisit some of the simple pleasures of youth, and there can hardly be a better way to do this than by replaying some of the classic console games that gave us so much pleasure in childhood. Unfortunately, classic Nintendo and Super Nintendo games were cartridge-based and extremely sensitive to dust and corrosion, and when the delicate metal contacts on these cartridges were dirty, the games would often refuse to function at all. When buying a classic Nintendo game on the secondary market today, this problem is even more likely to occur as the vast majority of used cartridges that are available have been improperly stored for two decades or more. Thankfully, with just a few household items, it is possible to restore these games to their original operation while avoiding the inflated prices that are charged by game retailers for cartridge refurbishment.

Getting Started

Before you begin restoring your classic Nintendo games, you will need a fully-functioning and clean Nintendo console. Nintendo games are equally as susceptible to blinking and non-playability if the console is dirty as they are if the games themselves need to be cleaned, and it is far more difficult to clean the inside of a console, which was never meant to be opened by the end user. Therefore, it is strongly recommended that you purchase a refurbished Nintendo console to enjoy your games with a minimum of hassle. Alternatively, several clone consoles are currently available which emulate the original hardware to near perfection. The FC Twin is a popular example of this; it is able to play both Nintendo and Super Nintendo games, and generally costs under $50.

Supplies Required

Before you begin cleaning your classic Nintendo games, ensure that all of your supplies are laid out in front of you in a manner that is accessible. You will need some isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol, a large supply of cotton swabs, a small dish or cup, and a place to dispose of your dirty cotton swabs. Because alcohol is a highly flammable substance, do not smoke or leave an open flame in the area where you will be working.

Cleaning Your Games

Pour some of the alcohol into your dish. Alcohol evaporates quickly, so using a separate dish will allow you to close your bottle while you work. Wet a cotton swab with a generous amount of alcohol, and rub it across the contacts of your cartridge. Work in an up-down motion, rubbing with the direction of the cartridge’s contacts rather than against it. This will prevent the fibers of the cotton swab from becoming lodged underneath the contacts. When you remove the cotton swab, you will find that it is dark with grime. Dip the other side of the cotton swab into the alcohol, and repeat. Do this only once for each side of the cotton swab; this will avoid recontamination of the alcohol and prevent dirt from being re-deposited onto the cartridge’s contacts. Once both sides of the cotton swab are dirty, discard it and begin cleaning with another one. Ensure that you are cleaning both sides of the cartridge’s contacts, and continue this process until your cotton swabs no longer pick up any dirt.

Once your Nintendo games are clean, leave them out and allow them to air dry for at least 3-4 hours. If you wish, you may use a fan to aid in the drying process, but do not blow into your cartridges. The saliva in your mouth could trigger corrosion, eventually rendering the game unplayable. After the cartridges are completely dry, you should be pleasantly surprised to find that they play exactly as they did when they were new.

NOTE: To extend the life of your classic Nintendo games, always remove them from the console when you are done playing with them, and place them into dust covers. Dust covers are available online and in retail game stores for pennies each, and can help to prevent grime from re-accumulating inside your cartridges and avoid more time-consuming cleaning projects.

Although the graphics and sound of modern console games greatly outclass the technical capabilities of the games that were made decades ago, restoring and playing classic Nintendo games proves that great gameplay is timeless. The simple steps that have been outlined in this article will restore your cartridges to pristine working condition, enabling you to continue enjoying them for many years to come.