Mario Kart Wii
Includes Nintendo Wii Wheel
Genre: Racing
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
Developer: Nintendo
Platform: Nintendo Wii
Price: $49.99
Released date: April 27, 2008

If you own a Wii the last two months have been a pretty good time, thanks to the release of Super Smash Bros.: Brawl, and now, the release of the newest Mario Kart Wii. Gamers shouldn’t expect a reinvention of the wheel (even though the game comes with its own wheel, more on that later), but it’s a Mario Kart game, so you know it’s going to be fun. New to the series is an increase to 12 racers on track at a time, some new items to torment your opponents with, the ability to use your Mii’s as drivers, and most exciting, online play. The additions though can’t stop this from feeling like more of the same. It’s still good more of the same, but it’s mostly just a reheat, not a reinvention along the lines of Mario Kart: Double Dash.

The first thing you have to decide when playing the game is which controller set up to use. You can use the Wii-mote by itself, the Wii-mote and nunchuck, the classic controller, and even the Gamecube controller. I found the classic or Wii-mote/nunchuck set up works best, with the Wii-mote/nunchuck combo working best for pulling off tricks off of jumps. I used the Wii-mote with the included steering wheel for one round of Grand Prix, and found the steering to be imprecise and overly difficult, plus my thumb went numb from the button placement. It’s a fine gimmick for casual players, but regular gamers will find the effort not worth the results.

Next we come to the track selection. You get a total of 32 tracks, 16 new and 16 “classic.” There are some pretty great new additions. “Wario’s Gold Mine” is a roller coaster of a track, and “Coconut Mall” is a fun maze in a shopping mall. There are of course some stinkers too; the new “Rainbow Road” is kind of a pain, but maybe I’ll get used to it the more I drive on it. The 16 classic tracks offer a wide variety of older tracks, and I have to say that the ones selected are kind of boring, I wish they had included some of the more unique tracks.

Power-ups remain mostly the same with the addition of some new power ups and the removal of the old Ghost power. New powers include the giant mushroom, which causes your kart and character to grow huge, allowing you to cover ground faster and crush your enemies, see them dragged behind you, and hear the lamentations of the women (well, at least the first one). The second new power is the POW block. Much like when it showed up in the original Mario Bros. game, the using the POW block causes the earth to shake, causing your opponents to spin out and lose what ever item they have. The third new power is the Thundercloud, which is terribly lame. Basically, when you activate the item, a thundercloud appears above your head and you have a set time in order to bump another racer and pass the cloud on to them. When time expires, the cloud lets off some lighting that shrinks whoever has the cloud at the time. Not a bad power, just make sure you don’t activate it when you all alone, other wise you end up shrinking. The rest of the old powers and items are still around though, meaning you’ll be cursing the sound of the incoming spiky blue shell in no time.

The biggest addition to the game, however, is online multiplayer. There are two modes, Grand Prix or Battle, both of which should be familiar to players. Grand Prix is simply a race against up to 12 other players, depending on who drops out before the start of the race. Battle mode comes in two flavors, coin runner or balloon battle. In each case drivers on two teams, up to six on a side, compete against each other to get the most points, either through collecting coins or knocking off other players’ balloons. Balloon battle is certainly my favorite, but it’s just fun to go in and play a game against random strangers. Of course you can play with friends, but that requires Nintendo’s bizarre friend code system, which is pretty much universally disliked. The play ran smooth over my internet connection, with out any slow down. The only additions needed are a better lobby system for finding other people, and voice chat would be nice as well. Nintendo has always been behind the curve when it comes to online play, so it’s not really a surprise to see it, but one wishes they could get their act together.

The graphics are perfectly fine, with lots of bright colors, but the game isn’t exactly pushing the boundaries of graphical stimulation. There are some nice touches to the characters, specifically when something is coming at them, for instance, when the player is about to get hit by the spike shell, the character will look up in anticipation of the coming explosion. There are just lots of nice little touches that make the game play a little more fun. Sure, they could have put more effort into the graphics, but the Wii isn’t exactly a high powered machine, and you don’t really need it on this type of game.

If you’ve ever played a Mario Kart game before, you’re not going to find much new here. What you will find is a highly polished bit of pick up and play enjoyment that you can pop in at any time and get a few minutes of fun. If you’ve played enough Smash Bros. to last a lifetime, well, you probably already bought this, but this is definitely the next great Wii game, and will be in constant rotation for a while, at least until the next, next great Wii game, which now that I think about, may be a long way off.