Mario Kart Wii has finally raced onto store shelves in North America. Should you race out to buy it?


by Benjamin Buday, Editor-in-Chief

Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Wii
Players: 1-4 Simultaneously
Rating: E for Everyone
Release Date: April 27, 2008 (N.A.)
My Rating: 8.8

Each Nintendo console gets one Mario Kart. That’s it. If it sucks (see: Mario Kart Double Dash), you have to wait for the next console and resign yourself to playing a Mario Kart you actually enjoy (see: Mario Kart 64). So I’ll cut to the chase and pose the most important question: is Mario Kart Wii a worthy entry in the series, or will it send gamers back to older Mario Kart games?

The answer is a little long-winded. More than any other Mario Kart, this iteration relies on luck and chance with items to level the playing field. It’s very hard to perfect technique because last place racers can catch up and, in fact, win easily. If you accept the fact all is fair in love, war and Mario Kart Wii, you’ll find you and your buddies glued to the Wiimotes for many a summer evening (you’ll also have put yourself through your very own anger management program for only $49.99). If you can’t swallow that pill, then go download Mario Kart 64 for the Virtual Console.

Mario Kart Wii, pound-for-pound, brings more features and options to the table than any other entry in the family. This one’s packed 16 new courses and 16 retro courses (including some of the best from Mario Kartt 64), the biggest Mario Kart roster, rules for playing multiplayer, Mii integration, multiple battle modes, and plenty of time trial ghosts from the programmers themselves. But where the game shines most is the new features it brings to the series.

First, and most prominent, the game ships with the Wii Wheel, a shell in which to place the Wiimote. Requiring no extra batteries or plugs, the shell serves simply as a more comfortable grip for the sideways Wiimote. Now all you racing gamers who jerk the controller side to side have justification for your wild antics. Press the control pad to deploy an item ahead or behind you, if applicable, and press left or right to hold a shell, fake box or banana behind you. Pretty standard stuff. Purists may prefer using the Wiimote/Nunchuk combination, which admittedly feels more natural, a Gamecube controller or a Classic Controller. Like Brawl, Mario Kart Wii offers plenty of control schemes for every gamer.

Finally, all of you who jerk the controller around in racing games can justify your habit.

Mario and his crew can now bike around the tracks. Players can select from an assortment of karts, as always, but also have a smattering of bikes at their disposal. Bikes handle differently and also boost differently: where karts can gain a bigger speed boost from drifting around turns, bikes can gain speed from performing wheelies on straightaways. However, steering and balance are sacrificed during said wheelies, so don’t go popping up that front tire in a tight pack. Overall, neither vehicle seems to have the advantage here. Perhaps the best part about this addition is that it gives players a larger spectrum of vehicles without offering dominant choices.

The boosting has been overhauled and now includes tricks that can be performed over jumps for a supplemental speed gain. In previous iterations of Mario Kart, the player could initiate drifting and weave in and out in order to gain a speed boost or, as is a common phrase these days, “bring the blue sparks.” Well, the days of weaving are long gone. In Mario Kart Wii, while drifting, the player will receive the sparks (and thus, the boost) almost randomly. I think it has to do with how much time you spend with the wheels in a neutral position – the longer you let the drift control itself, the quicker you bring the sparks. This dually makes boosting easier for beginners and rids the game of any potential “snaking” found in Mario Kart DS (in other words, experts can no longer drift and pull off quick successions of boosts on straightaways for maximum ownage). As a Kart veteran, I don’t mind the change all the much, but it’s another reminder that Nintendo’s leveling the playing field.

And the last – and perhaps most significant – addition is the inclusion of online play. For those who purchased Mario Kart DS, online Karting is nothing new. While the DS provided a reliable and entertaining WiFI component, Mario Kart Wii blows it out of the water with an offering that gives me hope for Nintendo’s online future.

Nintendo’s online offerings are typically crippled by the lack of interface that allows players to see what friends are doing online. Mario Kart Wii takes a step in the right direction with making it easier to find buddies online. First of all, plugging in numbers is no longer necessary. Simply send an invite from the “Mario Kart Channel” and when the friend responds to the invite, you can race anytime. Second, the Mario Kart Channel can be downloaded to the Wii Menu, so even without the game disc in the system, players can check and see what friends are online and what tournaments are happening. And finally, players can join sessions their friends are in. The Channel will notify players if friends are racing and will match them up if possible. The experience is very streamlined, intuitive and satisfying. I have yet to experience any slowdown during gameplay, and in fact, prefer playing online over the local two-player mode.

Online play provides a much more engrossing experience for one or two players and easily trounces the local match-up system, especially since grand prix mode is only single-player this time. Why axe a staple of the Mario Kart series like that? I don’t know. But I do know that you’ll have to earn those trophies all by yourself.

The visuals won’t win any awards unless the category is “Best Overuse of Glow Effect.” The soft visuals are what the Wii usually serves up, but once in a while, textures up close get ugly. Maybe even pug fugly. But when the game is zooming along – and with a nice frame rate, I might add – these details are somewhat minor.

So what it comes down to is this: if you’re read this far into this review, you’re probably going to buy this game anyway. As you should. The little things that plague this game, unfortunately, were spawned from Mario Kart: Double Dash, and haven’t been rectified yet. Why do players lose all their items when hit with blue shells, lightning, POW blocks, stars and Bullet Bills? Especially when a player is behind the pack, having items taken away is just a kick in the pants.

Also, I can’t finish this review without mentioning a) the length of the courses, and b) the myriad of useless characters. Part of me feels that the courses seem shorter because of the overhauled boosting system propelling players through courses quicker – that part of me wouldn’t mind seeing more laps in the races. As far as characters go, I’ve seen enough of the baby characters. Baby Mario is all any Mario game ever needs. These are minor gripes, but they add to the total value and presentation of the game.

But inevitably, if you own a Wii, you probably bought it in anticipation of Mario Kart Wii. Overall, Mario Kart Wii doesn’t disappoint, but it leaves a decent amount to be desired. Now, give us some DLC tracks, Nintendo, and then we’ll talk.

Benjamin can be reached at benjamin@megazinemedia.com.