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Nintendo: Wii Reviews

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Review

Mario Kart Wii

94%

Format Nintendo Wii

Developer Nintendo

Publisher Nintendo

Genre Racing / Driving

10-Apr-2008 Mario's motoring masterclass takes pole position

94 Comments

How many of you were a bit nervous when Nintendo announced that Mario Kart Wii would be released so soon? How many of you started thinking it might be a 'rush job' to fill a gap in the Wii release schedule? How many saw the bikes and thought "oh no, they've ruined Mario Kart"? We'll admit it: deep down, we were worried about all of the above. It turns out we should have known better.

Long story short: it's Mario Kart. It's not some warped, twisted monster that used to be Mario Kart and has now mutated into some horrible kart/bike shambles that's lost its magic. That familiar, addictive Mario Kart gameplay is still there, only now it's even better.

Don't Go Breaking My Kart
There are 12 playable characters when you first start the game, with a whole host to unlock. We won't spoil them just now but, needless to say, a couple of the hidden characters are surprise inclusions who haven't been in a Mario Kart game before. The usual weight classes are back in force, with characters split into light, medium and heavy classes. At first, each weight class has a choice of three different karts and three different bikes, but more are unlockable as you progress.

There are 32 tracks in total, consisting of 16 new tracks and 16 retro ones. Although a couple of the new tracks are curiously similar to ones in older Mario Kart games (Luigi Circuit and Moo Moo Meadows have more than a slight ring of Double Dash!! and Mario Kart 64 to them), the majority of them are fantastic new additions to the series and have some great little quirks in them. For example, Koopa Cape has a downhill stream going through the middle of the track, so it's worth trying to time your powerslides so you go through the stream and get extra speed.

The retro tracks have been given a bit of polish, so even the SNES tracks look nice and 3D. Every game in the series is represented (except the arcade ones) with four N64, DS and GameCube tracks and two tracks apiece from the SNES and GBA titles, meaning whatever your favourite Kart game is, there should be something here to keep you more than happy.

The Wheel Deal
There are four big gameplay differences that greatly affect the way the game is played. The first of these is the most obvious: the inclusion of the Wii Wheel. Believe it or not, the wheel actually works tremendously well. Yes, it's just a plastic shell and shouldn't really make a huge difference but it really does add to the atmosphere. What's more, the steering has a larger 'dead zone' than Excite Truck did, meaning there's a reasonable degree of leeway in how you much you can turn the wheel before your kart starts turning. This gives you more control, since turning left and right requires more deliberate turns in that direction, rather than the way it was in Excite Truck where the slightest rotation of the Remote made the truck start to turn, leading to all sorts of slippy-slidey shenanigans as you frantically turned the Remote left and right just to straighten up.

The game also supports numerous other control methods (Remote and Nunchuk, GameCube controller, Classic controller), but even though we had our hearts set on dramatically abandoning the wheel, yelling "viva la old school" and using a GameCube controller, the truth is (whisper it) we actually prefer the Wheel. Much like the Wii Zapper gives an extra sense of fun to shooting games, the Wii Wheel simply feels more like you're playing a driving game.

Snakey Breaky Kart
The second big difference is the removal of snaking. Ever since the N64 game, practically every Mario Kart game has included the ability to get a speed boost by waggling the controls left and right as you powerslide. This has finally been scrapped, and now your speed boost is determined by how long you can hold the slide. So all you do is the usual 'hop and slide', then as you turn the corner a blue spark appears. You can either let go there and get a speed boost, or keep sliding until you get a red spark which gives you a better boost. Since it takes a while before the blue boost activates, this pretty much eliminates snaking, as it's now a lot more hassle than it's worth.

Diamond Dozen
Thirdly, there are now 'tricks' that can be performed during jumps. This isn't as needlessly complicated as it sounds. All it means is that any time your kart goes off a jump (it doesn't need to be a big one, just any time all four wheels come off the ground) you simply flick the Wheel upwards and your character will perform a stunt, getting a nice speed boost when they land. There's no danger of falling off or having to learn tricky button combinations for different stunts or any of that rubbish. It totally changes the way you think about races and is a great substitute for snaking because it allows you to get speed boosts on straights but is simple enough that anyone can do it.

Finally, the bikes. They were a controversial inclusion, but the truth is they work very well. They don't actually handle too differently from the karts. The main difference to consider is that they only get blue boosts when turning, not red. Although this may seem like it makes the bikes weaker than karts, there's a reason for this: your bike can also do a wheelie on any straight (for a slight speed boost) by flicking the Wheel up. Believe it or not (whisper it again), we actually ended up preferring the bikes to the karts.

As if that wasn't enough, the online options are the best we've ever seen in a Nintendo game. You can take part in enormous 12-player races, create your own private race room, download challenges set by Nintendo which are then ranked worldwide and download the ghost times set by the world's top 100 racers on any track. You can even use your Friends List to compare your Time Trial times with those of your mates and, if they're slower, send them your ghost data for that lap and challenge them to beat it (they'll get notified of your challenge on their Wii Message Board). It's an amazingly detailed online set-up and will have you hooked for even longer than Mario Kart DS did.

Despite all our initial fears, Mario Kart Wii is actually one of the most enjoyable racing games we've played and may even be a contender for the title of 'Best Mario Kart Ever'. Almost everything that annoyed us about past Mario Karts has been tweaked or fixed (mushrooms have more oomph and give a much better speed boost, you can turn off all items in multiplayer races to focus on racing and dispel that annoying 'blue shell syndrome', you can now easily throw weapons forward or back by pressing up or down on the D-Pad and so on), and it's fantastic fun. Whether you're a casual gamer or a Mario Kart die-hard, this is a truly essential game, and you'll be playing it for months to come...

Chris Scullion

We were worried that Nintendo would drop the ball on this one - how foolish we were. Mario Kart Wii is a fantastic racer and the best online Nintendo game ever.

That addictive Mario Kart gameplay

Fantastic fun in multiplayer

Loads of online options

The new stunt system is great

The Wii Wheel works well

Screenshots

Interactive

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Posted by LuX

Well i'm definatly getting it tommorow, I played it at GAME on saturday, and came second :cry: , and it was great fun my Favourite MK game has to be DS and i only played Luigi circuit on this version and i can say i think its better, although the character graphics are a bit rough compared to say Brawl or Galaxy, the background has that familiar mushroom kingdom feel and for me is a real treat, the new items are really fantastic. and yes i was bothered about the bikes too but i used one and it seemed good, although it felt weird with the wheel :? but nothings perfect :D.

To be honest i started to have my doubts with the Wii, TP was good but not as good as the hype, bark was bigger than the bite if you like, and then Galaxy came along, and although not as good for me as SM64 it was still brilliant and then Brawl and MKWii really changed things and with the upcoming games such as Tales of Symphonia 2 and Wii Ware this could be very good for the Wii now all we need is some third party titles to keep the awesome standards Nintendo has shown.

Posted by cwfowner

Now I would like to write tons about how awesome this looks, but sadly I'm using a Wii so I can't, so I'll be short sweet and to the point, the controls are brilliant, so are bikes and as a self-confessed retro addict I went to heaven when I heard about all the classic tracks. In short, third looks like the best Mk ever

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