Mario Kart Wii: A fresh take on a storied franchise

Mii, myself, and Mario Kart
Sometimes it's hard to look back and fathom that the Mario Kart series has been around almost as long as I've been able to write. I was there back in 1992 when one of Nintendo's most storied franchises was released onto the SNES console. I spent countless hours racing my siblings and friends in grand prix and battles, more or less addicted to the game that later led to the mass production of platformer racing titles.

To this very day I still have a lot of respect for the Mario Kart series. It's simply one of the best managed franchises of all video games, strictly adhering to one game per console rule for the last 16 years.(as opposed to other franchises, such as Mario Party, which released 16,000 games for the N64 alone) This management, along with increasingly interesting level design and subtle changes in gameplay mechanics over the years has kept Mario Kart games fresh and led to each of the titles being among the best sellers for every console they've appeared on. With the news of Mario Kart Wii being released almost concurrently with Smash Bros Bros Brawl, and the fact that I'm on a tight budget, I had to make a relatively hard decision. I chose Mario Kart Wii. Did it live up to franchise's history? Or did I pick the wrong game? Read in to find out...

Methods of Gameplay
Probably the most interesting update featured in Mario Kart Wii is your option to play under various different controller configurations, using any of 4 different controllers. The newest, and probably most optimal, of these controllers is the Wii wheel, which simulates racing by encapsulating your Wii remote in a wheel shell and being sensitive to various movements. Along with the Wii wheel, gamers can use the Wii classic controller, gamecube controller, or the Wii Remote/Nunchuk combination to play.

Of all of these configurations, the Wii Wheel is certainly the most intriguing. Thus far I've found that the wheel does have a small learning curve to it, especially to those less familiar with the Wii in general, but overall it's actually very responsive and accurate. The classic controller and Gamecube controller are also pretty good options and are used essentially the same as the Gamecube controller was used in Double Dash. The Remote/Nunchuk combination is pretty terrible and feels quite unnatural, and generally results in gamers trying it once and vowing never to use it again. The only problem with the Wii Wheel that I have is that it's a peripheral, so it comes with a cost. You get your first Wii Wheel on the house when you buy Mario Kart, but each additional wheel will run you about 15$.(actually fairly cheap for a peripheral)

Game Modes
Veterans of the Mario Kart series will notice that very little has changed in terms of the offline game modes offered. First and foremost you have your Grand Prix mode, where you choose a driver and compete against a field of 12 opponents in one of 8 cups, each consisting of 4 tracks. Along with your Grand Prix mode there's also a versus mode, where you pick a track and race against real human players, without the field of computer controlled characters. The time trial mode allows you to race only against the clock and perfect your strategy on any track(something fairly laughable). And finally, there's the battle mode, where up to 4 human players compete on a series of ten battle maps, collecting coins and popping balloons. One thing has changed in the battle mode though, because now you can only play 2 vs 2 as opposed to the free for alls offered in past installments.

The most notable addition in terms of gameplay though comes in the form of new online support that pits you against players from all of the world. While this is certainly a welcome addition to the franchise and definitely adds loads of replay value to an already fairly deep game, I've found this mode somewhat underwhelming. The ranking system is relatively useless especially in the online versus mode, because so much of the game is decided on luck(more on this later), and the lack of a means of verbal communication makes smack talk an art lost on this game. There are some pretty cool features here though, including leader boards that show you the best times posted throughout the world, and even allow you watch a ghosted replay of said races to help you figure out how to "master" courses. The online mode is also laid and designed as well or better as any other title I've played on the Wii.

Drivers and their carts
Another feature returning from of the series' later installments is the inclusion of multiple karts for each character. Each player begins with a choice of three karts and three bikes, with the ability to unlock several more means of transportation as you go along. Each of these karts or bikes are rated on a bunch of different categories including speed, handling, acceleration, and drift. As you may have guessed, the karts and motorcycles each have their own advantages and disadvantages, and certain vehicles will be better suited to a certain track than others.

Mario Kart Wii also features an impressive list of 25 playable drivers, 24 of them being characters from Nintendo Franchises, and one being your Mii. Among this list are several series classics including Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, Yoshi, Bowser, DK, ect. But, the game also features 5 complete new comers to the series, 4 of which I've never heard of. Along with Funky Kong, of the DK series, these new players are baby peach, baby daisy(who the hell?), Rosalina(what?), and dry bowser.(bowser before he drinks 8 long islands?) I'm really not complaining about the depth added from the game having 12 unlockable characters though, and to be honest, the use of such obscure characters that I've never heard actually makes me feel like less of a nerd.(Hooray self esteem!) The addition of your Mii's being usable as drivers is pretty interesting, and I can say from experience that there's nothing quite like pounding a couple dozen beers and driving around tracks in a go kart with Lindsey Lohan at the helm. It just feels all too natrual.

Tracks
If I've yet to drive home the fact that depth is Mario Kart Wii's strongest suit, hopefully you'll get the picture in this paragraph. Mario Kart Wii is loaded with a whopping 32 tracks, spread into 8 different cups. 16 of these tracks are brand new, while the other 16 are throwback tracks from previous games, obviously with the more light hearted nostalgic gamer in mind. While the retro tracks do take you for a nice drive down memory lane, they actually end up being hit or miss. Among the old tracks included are a few of the best courses in the series history, like DK's Jungle Parkway, the N64 Bowser's Castle, and the DS's Yoshi Falls, but the list also sports a few particularly boring tracks like 2 mario circuits, Mario Raceway, and Peach gardens. Conventional wisdom is that Nintendo is probably saving a lot of the more poignant track remakes for later titles, which is okay because:

THE NEW TRACKS ARE CONSIDERABLY BETTER THAN MOST OF THE OLD ONES ANYWAY. Mario Kart Wii's new tracklist sports some of the trippyest, most interesting race courses in the history of the series. Particularly memorable maps like Mushroom gorge where you jump across a plethora of elastic mushrooms and take advantage of several stretches of turbo driveway, Coconut Mall, where you race through a crazy Nintendo shopping center, and Koopa Cape, which is an aquarium like track, really add to the fun factor of the title. They also might hypothetically make you want to spark up a bowl of your favorite smoking substance and glue yourself to your TV for a few hours, although I personally would never do this because drugs are bad AND illegal.

Now onto the negative
While the controller options, deep character list, and variable track selection are all welcome features of Mario Kart Wii, the game also struggles with some new found gameplay issues. The biggest beef that veterans of the series will have is that most of the skill curve of the game has been eliminated. This is mainly due to a tweaked control system, and the addition of more power items. The updated control system, which includes much easier to perform power slide boosts, and areal "tricks", which also give you bursts of speed, have totally marginalized the skill advantages seen by master players who used to be able to perform difficult slides at the perfect times. A couple of new power items to go along with items such as the lightning bolt and blue shell make it considerably easier to cut time deficits and particularly more difficult to stay in first for the duration of a race.

Graphics and Audio
As far as Wii games are concerned, Mario Kart is one of the better looking games for the console.(although I'm not sure that this is saying much) As I stated previously, many of the new 16 tracks extremely stylized and well designed. The retro tracks, on the other hand, generally look very much like they did on whatever console they were originally released for, which actually makes for some interesting animation schemes. Overall though, Mario Kart Wii could best be summed up as a slightly better textured and detailed sequel to Double Dash, which appeared on the Gamecube. Framerate wise, Mario Kart runs at a solid 60 FPSs throughout the single player experience, but drops down to 30FPSs online. This does tend to cause a bit of lag in high action areas, but it's definitely not a huge issue and is more or less a negligible problem in the overall picture.

The audio depart shouldn't surprise any gamers that have ever played any installment of the Mario Kart series. Each of the characters in the game have a short list of lines along with some grunts and groans, and this chatter is overshadowed by what could more or less be described as elevator background music. While some gamers I'm sure could be disappointed by the audio, I don't put a whole lot of stock in video game music anyway and honestly the sounds fit the light hearted nature of the game fairly well.

Closing arguments
In spite of changes, some being improvements, some being otherwise, Mario Kart Wii is basically exactly what I expected it to be. Fans of the Mario Kart series are going to appreciate the game's added depth and enjoy it regardless of its small list of shortcomings. People who aren't into the franchise probably aren't going to like it any better than previous offerings. I definitely fall into the first category, and that said, I'm obviously pretty happy with it. It's certainly one of the best "party" games out there, and could probably even be called a "must play" for Wii owners.

Thanks for reading,
-Pav