Upon first seeing Mario Kart Wii, I remained questionable. Part of me wondered if this would crash and burn before the standards set by the gold-encrusted gem known as Mario Kart DS, or if it would greatly surpass it and make us forget about the disappointing Mario Kart: Double Dash! which very well could’ve started the brand new franchise of slow, trudging races entitled Mario Tractor. But since getting the latest iteration of this franchise, my wavering opinion on the game has failed to reach a point of resolute. It has both exceeded my expectations and failed to meet them at the same time. But one area where the game certainly earns its name is that it is so damn fun! So enough jibber-jabbering. Let me get you up to speed… OH I just HAD to do it!

The Mario Kart formula hasn’t exactly changed in the 15 years the series has existed. Take some Mario characters, put them on some wacky and colourful race tracks where they bombard one another with items such as banana peels, green shells and more, all in an attempt to reach 1st place and get the gold. Throw in a multiplayer battle mode where you go head-to-head in an arena, and you basically have the premise of every Mario Kart game ever made. That doesn’t change here, and honestly, it never had to. The only real difference to that formula is that now you can ride on motorbikes, as well as pull off some tricks with the newly implemented trick-system. Neither addition was necessarily required or in demand, but it certainly doesn’t hinder the experience, instead only adding to the overall depth.

That’s right, I said depth. Something Mario Kart isn’t necessarily known for. But on the contrary, there’s a surprising amount. There are certain ways you need to approach each track, there are simple techniques that can really help you out here and there, and plenty of options in choosing the character and kart perfect for you. For example, when driving directly behind someone, you’ll notice little air-streaks appearing around your kart. Stay there long enough and your speed will noticeably increase for a short while, offering you a chance to shoot on ahead. Its little tidbits like that that can truly surprise you and make the game a bit smarter than you’d originally anticipate.

The game progresses in a simple way. In the GP mode, you get the choice between 50cc, 100cc, 150cc, and eventually the Mirror mode as different speed classes. Mirror mode itself could become a nightmare if you just grow too used to the tracks and their layout. This happened to me and I will say that this is probably the most shocking Mirror Mode I have played thus far. In each of the classes, you can choose from one of the 8 cups. Obviously, you want to get in 1st, but you also want to get a high rank. Even though you may place highly, the game considers your speed as well as performance. These go from E to A, and beyond those are Star, double Star, and triple Star. It is a slight motivator to improving your performance in each race as higher ranks may allow you to unlock additional characters or karts. But doing so isn’t made so easy. Not that it should be, but it’s made a lot harder for a lot of the wrong reasons. But more on that later.

In Nintendo’s recent strategy of targeting their games to not only Mr. Joe Gamer but your housecleaning mom as well, Mario Kart Wii has afew additions to try and even the playing field. For one, powersliding has been slightly tweaked. Powersliding is the technique you need to use in order to take really sharp turns, and the game’s design certainly follows closely to relying on it. Upon selecting your vehicle, you can choose to either go with automatic or manual powersliding. Automatic is ideal for players who don’t really play many games and makes things a bit less overwhelming for newcomers. But manual feels a bit closer to home, requiring you to hold down a button as you approach sharper corners. While automatic would be the way to go for lesser-experienced players, those who try and master the manual powerslide will receive a nice little speed boost in return. This leads into the problem of snaking found in previous games. Snaking is when players would abuse the powerslide and use the speed boost, not just on turns, but at every spot possible. Users defended themselves saying they were only using a technique available in the game, while others would get annoyed and stop playing altogether. It has in a way been removed from this game, but not totally. Instead of relying on how quick you can hit left and right on the D-pad like last time, making your wheels start to spark and then sending you into a boost, it is now time-based. The longer you can hold a powerslide, the better. The game makes it a bit harder to pull it off in places where it’s not intended to be used, but we know someone will just come around, figure it out, and get showered in all the fame and fortune that comes with winning at Mario Kart.

But Nintendo’s desire to make things fair-game so that everyone can have fun instead spoils a lot of the fun, and that’s so terribly ironic. The game’s overly “fair” rubber-banding is a huge issue. Even though you may be a great driver and you may be doing excellently, your victory is almost definitely not going to last because the next thing you know, you will be bombarded by blue shells and other weapons of mass-destruction found in the back room of Peewee’s Playhouse. While racers in the first few places will get plenty of throw-away items like banana peels, people in the back will be almost instantly shot forward with an arsenal of weapons that could take out the Terminator. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t very often, but that’s just it. It’s SO often. The first two speed-difficulties aren’t as bad, more like a mild annoyance like a teenage girl who says “like” all the time, giving you the feeling that similes are the only thing she knows and that nothing is truly real. But being able to beat 150cc with a high rank and in first place seems almost entirely based on chance. It wouldn’t be bad if you fell behind one or maybe two places. That’s fine, that’s manageable. But here, after running two out of three laps almost flawlessly, I was hit by a blue shell, ANOTHER blue shell, a bob-omb, was run over by a giant racer, and then knocked to the side by Bowser. After finally being able to regain control, I found myself in dead last with no hope in hell of making a recovery. And this isn’t a rare occurrence either. It happens again and again. What sort of game punishes you for being good? It’s like making an extravagant meal for your lover on your anniversary, and instead of a nice kiss on the lips, she beats you to death with a chicken leg. I’m all for making games accessible to non-players, but any game that makes an effort to give you the finger for a job well done needs to get their priorities straightened… and then be beaten to the ground mercilessly by Russell Crowe.

As for the items themselves, there are certainly the usual suspects. Banana peels that leave someone slipping, green shells that ricochet throughout the environments, speed-boosting mushrooms, etc. There are also Bullet Bills that will automatically throw you up a bit further in the race while taking out people going down the center of the track. Some of the new additions are certainly neat as well. A personal favorite is the little lightning cloud that will increase your speed for a short while, but once it starts sparking a lot, it will shrink you. If you run into someone though, you can transfer it over to them and timing it right will make them suffer the item’s downside instead. This certainly adds a neat little layer of strategy to the racing. Sadly, the blue shell that homes in on the 1st place racer returns. This wouldn’t be so unfortunate if this or any of the other super-powered items didn’t appear so often. One thing that made the SNES original so neat was that the homing red shells, the invincibility stars etc. were a big deal upon obtaining because they weren’t as common. But now, the chaos gets dished out like nothing. You can obtain the rarest, best item in the game but it won’t mean anything because you were bound to get it from being farther back in the race anyways. It honestly loses the significance of everything you do as well as that charm that comes from multiplayer games.

There are 32 tracks in total, 4 of which are found in each of the cups. 16 are brand new tracks, but like in the DS game, you will also get 16 classic tracks from various games, almost like a ‘greatest hits’ of Mario Kart. The 16 new tracks are honestly some of the best in the series. They’re just so damn imaginative and so clever that you can’t help but marvel at them. Someone at Nintendo must either be on one of the most insane acid trips to ever exist or they’re just genius level designers. And despite the game screwing you over again and again, it’s not that big of a pain to go through some of these courses because you’ll just have so much fun doing it. But then you get brought back to reality via a blue shell and you go back to hating your life and everyone around you, but that’s not the point. There are plenty of little short cuts throughout the game, and it’s always cool when you find a brand new one waiting to be exploited. You’ll travel through plenty of neat Mario-inspired environments such as a new Bowser’s Castle, DK Mall etc., and the charm screams from each one.

But strange as it is, this honestly hinders the game. Not because these environments are bad, but because they completely outshine most of the classic tracks. When going back to these older levels, you are sort of disinterested in some of them just because you keep thinking about the newer ones. I didn’t want to believe it. Me, the guy who adores the older age of gaming, who rants about how awesome PC adventure games were, about obscure SNES games. How could I say that the new is better than the old? But I just couldn’t help it. I was dragged by my feet only to find myself on a tropical paradise and all the servants looked like Kristen Kreuk. The comparison between the older and newer levels is almost frightening. It would be like having to choose between Captain Awesome’s Candy-Coated Dreamworld and Mr. Wilson’s Brussel Sprout Bonanza. Okay, it’s not that bad. The older levels still have some charm, but there wasn’t much of an upgrade done to match the game up with the Wii levels. Some of the SNES stages still look very pixelated and while that’s kinda neat, the novelty gets old. But even then, some of these classic tracks don’t feel very classic. It’s as if Nintendo is just stockpiling some of the best levels for future use in the franchise. Nevertheless, all the levels are still enjoyable. They each have a neat little twist and it soon becomes hard to pick a favorite.

It should also be noted that you can unlock the ability to play as your Mii. It’s a neat little addition, but sort of surreal as well. There’s something unsettling about a driving baby throwing a bomb and watching you blow up or fall off of a chasm.

Of course though, one of the big questions sits with the Wii Wheel, the peripheral that comes packaged in with Mario Kart Wii. How does it feel? Well, honestly, it feels good. I was surprised since I have never been a fan of the Excite Truck control scheme, feeling it was too unresponsive and too finicky for racers. But Mario Kart Wii does it well. It’s easy for some people to pick it up and it’s worth giving a shot. One problem it still has is that when getting used to it, it’s hard to determine the point that your turning input will be detected. This can take maybe a race or two to get used to, but once you do, you will probably have made up your mind on whether or not you will want to use it more or not. It’s not as if the Wheel does anything though. It’s just a plastic shell, just like the ones you’ve found on shelves since the Wii’s launch. But it’s not like those really. It’s far more comfortable, allows you to use the IR in menus, and it just feels good. If you really enjoy the Wheel, you may as well go out and get some more for your other controllers.

It’s not the only method for controlling the game though. If you prefer the more accurate feeling of a control stick, you can still go with the Wii-mote/Nunchuk mode, as well as the Classic Controller and Gamecube Controller. While that latter two work fine, the Wii-mote/Nunchuk felt like the best. Part of it is due to the trick-system. Mario Kart Wii has a lot more ramps, jumps, and quarter-pipes than in previous games. Shaking either the Wii Wheel or Wii-remote when in the air will give you a slight speed boost when you land. Some of the jumps are put in slightly out-of-the-way places, so sometimes it feels like you’re going to have to choose between maintaining your speed or going for a fun little trick. Beyond the speed boost, there’s really nothing else to the trick system. It’s sort of disappointing, but with so much else going on, it’s good that they didn’t overdo it. Where this comes into the control schemes is that since you can gain a speed-boost, you are better off with the Wii-remote focused methods, whether it be wheel or nunchuk.

The vehicle choices are pretty neat. Each of the racers are split into various categories of light, medium, or heavy weighted. These classes each have 12 different vehicles to choose from, plenty of which need to be unlocked. Each certainly feels different and handles differently, but you’re bound to find one that suits you. However in some of the time trials, you may need to find a different set of wheels to fit the situation. The difference between the karts and bikes is also interesting. Karts are more ideal for handling turns because on top of your primary drift boost with your wheels sparking blue, you also get a second drift boost with your wheels sparking orange, giving you an even larger thrust forward. However on straighter levels, you may want to pull out the bikes. Shaking the Wii-mote will make you pull a wheelie, giving you more speed, but drastically less control unless you hop out of it. You might want to think about which vehicle is best-suited for the situation ahead. It is somewhat unfortunate though, that the vehicles aren’t character specific like in previous entries. This somewhat takes away the individual charm of each racer.

Visually, the game looks… okay. Some are going to argue with me, calling it gorgeous, but seriously take a look. It really doesn’t look much better than the Gamecube game, with some jaggy models and the occasional over-stretched texture. Part of this is excusable since the designers did increase the amount of racers from the traditional 8 to 12, sacrificing quality for quantity. Plenty of other games have done this same thing and it has had mixed results. But what gets annoying is that everything looks shiny. There’s some weird look to all the vehicles and racers that makes them look as if they’re all made of plastic or were near a Vaseline factory when it exploded. Everything looks shiny. Even Donkey Kong, a furry monkey looks shiny. It pulls away the charm a bit and it just doesn’t look good. On top of that, the game implements bloom-lighting far too many times. Once in a while, it’s not bad. But the colours here get sort of washed out when everything looks like it’s at dawn. It looks less like a cartoon and that’s sort of sad. There’s also afew occasions of objects popping up, and that really just distracts when you notice it. Animations are as great as ever, there’s a solid and fluid framerate, and the effects are definitely charming, but there are too many visual annoyances to say it looks great.

The game sounds like a Mario Kart game. There’s really upbeat music, and it sounds like a fun little racer. None of the music tracks are really memorable, but they do the job. Some of the voices are a bit irritating though, especially when you’re pulling off a lot of tricks off of a lot of jumps. I really want to punch Waluigi. But still, the game sounds good overall, even if it’s not spectacular. It’s appropriate if anything.

The multiplayer is really where Mario Kart got its reputation however. Battle Mode returns with two scenarios: Balloon Battle or Coin Runners. Coin Runners is neat, collecting coins and attacking opponents in order to steal theirs. But Balloon Battle is a classic… a classic that has now been stomped on. I don’t want to sound too distressed, but a lot of the fun has been pulled out of Battle Mode and the only reasoning is that Nintendo didn’t want anyone to get their feelings hurt if they lost. The crime committed is that Battle Mode in its entirety is now a Team-based affair. That’s right. No Free-for-All. No anarchistic madness. You are forced to being on teams, and it’s so frustrating. Not just because it takes away one of the game’s funnest aspects, but because sometimes you get screwed over, like in almost every other part of the game. Even though you may be a dead-on marksman, your teammates may not be. You can kick ass but be pulled down because it seems that everyone else was either picking their noses or was just driving around the levels enjoying the scenery. And even though you may lose all 3 balloons on your back from being hit, you just get a time-out shorter than a cut in a Jason Bourne film and get thrown back in. The final score is entirely based on a cumulative count. Mario Kart Wii, that’s not cool. If someone sucks at a game, let them suck and then get better. Stop trying to be the soccer coach who goes “Everyone’s a winner!” like some sort of communist spy intending on overthrowing the universe. Battle Mode can still provide a good deal of fun but there’s not much left after having the life sucked dry by Count von Count’s smile-hating nemesis.

While this isn’t a new addition to the franchise, it is new for the console versions. You’re able to take Mario Kart Wii online, alone or with a friend, via the best-implemented Wii online experience thus far. The annoying friend codes return, true, forcing you and your buddy to remembering each other’s 12-digit code in order to play one another, but that’s pretty much one of the only annoyances. When searching for an online game, you will be taken to a loading screen of the globe. When your opponents (up to 11 other players) are all found, the globe will pin-point them on the map, indicating their country, username, and the Mii they are using. It’s a subtle addition but it really adds to it and it’s quite neat to see who you’re up against. The game itself works wonders. It’s fast, smooth, and honestly runs a bit better than local multiplayer since the game doesn’t have to drop the framerate to 30 to accommodate all the other players. There was only one small instance of slowdown and one where I was disconnected, but even then, it was after the race was already over. Battle Mode is also playable online, but there’s no real point. Battle Mode is a mode all about trash-talking your friends in a room, and even against your friends online, there’s no point if there’s no voice chat. You may as well just play single player for that. One other downer is that you can’t take a friend through the GP online, or even with random players. No idea why, it seems so obvious. But it’s just not there. Nevertheless, if you want to take your racing skills online, Mario Kart Wii does an excellent job and really sets the new standard for online multiplayer on the platform. It has its downsides, sure, but the quality and fluidity of the experience is still quite satisfying.

In the game is also the Mario Kart Channel, a channel you can access via the game or just download to your Wii. You can check leaderboards, add friends, and download time trials. One omission from this game was the Missions from the DS. Each was a small scenario which required you to accomplish a goal like “drive through the rings in order” or “race through a track backwards”. These missions were an excellent addition, requiring you to work on a different aspect of your game, whether it be driving, powersliding, or aiming with weapons. But they haven’t been totally removed in this title. In Mario Kart Wii, there are Tournaments you can compete in which basically are like a single new mission every couple weeks. Once complete, your results can be uploaded to the servers and you can see how you did compared to the rest of the world. While it would have been neater to still include some regular missions in-game, at least they haven’t been totally removed. And this is a fairly neat way to include them too, I suppose.

Okay, all in all, despite all my complaints, it’s hard to say Mario Kart Wii isn’t fun. And if you can say that, you must be saying it between your time spent stabbing children, worshiping Satan, and watching Julia Roberts movies. Sure the game has a tendency to kick you in the balls once in a while, but you can’t help but forgive it. It’s sort of like the wife who is uglier than a pug, doesn’t put out, and is slowly draining your soul but you stay anyways because she can make a Sunday dinner that could turn Hitler into a happy-go-lucky fellow, handing out candy canes and dirt bikes. Single player, it can certainly be frustrating trying to get the gold in each of the cups, as well as with a high rank, especially when being bombarded by the entire U.S. Military, but it still manages to make you smile in-between moments of utter rage. The multiplayer is still better than most games can offer and while it’s not as great previous entries, the online definitely adds a bit of value. The Mario Kart Channel is bound to give the game some legs if you want to keep up-to-date with it, and it’s a game that you definitely will enjoy with friends. All-in-all, it comes down to this. If you have friends, go out and buy this one. It’s definitely got a lot packed into it and you and your buds will definitely keep playing again and again. And if you don’t have a lot of friends, get it anyways because despite its flaws in the single-player, it’s something you at least will want to try. This isn’t the ideal Mario Kart Wii, but ultimately it all comes down to if a game is fun. In which case, Mario Kart Wii certainly earns its name.

Gameplay

Frustrating due to the high-level of rubber-banding, especially in the higher speeds. Nevertheless, excellent online, excellent multiplayer, and while not the greatest in the franchise, it is definitely going to entertain. A surprising amount of depth and strategy, but still simple enough and accommodating for newcomers. Bikes are a neat addition.

Visuals

Definitely not great. Downgraded in order to accommodate the additional number of racers. All characters, and vehicles look ’shiny’ for some reason, making them all look like plastic. Track designs are spectacular though. Runs very fluidly, both online and off. Some excellent effects.

Sound

Music is fitting but nothing special. Sound effects are clear and well-designed. Character voices certainly get annoying. Waluigi, I’m coming for you.

Stuff

Inclusion of Miis. 32 tracks to go through on 4 different speed classes. Plenty of characters and vehicles to unlock. Online tournaments via the Mario Kart Channel are neat, but removal of Missions seemed unnecessary. Excellent online experience.

Waffle Factor

For everything this game has going against it, it has something great going for it. While still frustrating at points, it’s still enjoyable. Team-based multiplayer is a serious downer and really brings the game down a bit, but the excellent online integration does save it. Plenty to unlock and you’ll spend a good amount of time doing so. However the high-level of rubber-banding is really going to turn some people sour. But ultimately, it is fun enough that you just have to get it.

SCORE: 8.2/10