Mario Kart Wii ( 7.0 out of 10 ) ...
May 13, 2008 ... Review by Chad
Mario Kart has been around since the SNES. The last installment for both the DS and Gamecube proved to be a little too hardcore for a casual gamer to really excel in. Enter Mario Kart Wii, a game where anyone can win, no matter how many years you’ve been playing video games. Because this game has been out for over a month in Japan, I’ve been able to play for a decent amount of time and really judge whether or not this game is all it’s cracked up to be.
At its heart, it’s still Mario Kart. All the stages are the same (in fact, half are imported from previous installments), the music is the same, and most of the game can be handled just like its predecessors.
There are some new things though, and that’s what I’d like to focus on here. First of all, the game comes with a steering wheel that you attach to the Wiimote, and it’s really fun the first couple of times you use it. Once you realize you’re over-steering and you could be doing a lot better with a Wiimote + nunchuck combo or a Gamecube controller, you’ll get serious.
But after you’ve been getting serious with the game you’ll find that you’ve unlocked a bunch of cool things and now you have no one to play with because you’re instantly leagues better than anyone else on the block. As Zero Punctuation’s Yahtzee puts it, you’ve become “that guy”, who has everything memorized and can beat the game without looking. Nintendo has been doing this recently where they’ve made you play the game for hours upon hours by yourself in order to have all of the things that make the game fun in the first place.
And what makes the game fun is that it’s more or less a return to the SNES version. Gone are using crazy Mario Kart mastery tricks to win a match. Included though is the dirtiest way to win matches… chance.
With inclusions of power-ups like the blue shell, Bullet Bill, the lighting cloud and the mega-mushroom, you can rest assured that if you just fell into 12th place, you aren’t going to be there for long. The same goes for 1st place though. If you’re in first place,
you’re going to get the worst power-ups (mainly bananas and green shells), and you’re about to get pulverized.
Not all of the new inclusions are horrible though. Being able to use Miis in the game is sheer genius. I was skeptical at first, but it’s more the way they’re used in some of the stages more than being able to play as them. Speaking of, you can play as just about any character from the Mario series. This has to be some kind of a record. They’ve even made up characters, because they’d scraped the bottom of the barrel with such gems as Baby Peach and Waluigi. I honestly have no idea how Funky Kong and Dry Bones got into the game.
The ability to use motorbikes in the game as well as karts is really cool too. They control very differently, and are overall great to mess around with. In fact, it’s like playing an entirely new game.
Even though parts of this game don’t even make sense, a good amount of the game is fun and thus makes this installment of Mario Kart worth your time. As long as you’re not the only one unlocking new parts of the game, you should find that this is a really great game, one that is certainly worth your hard-earned coin.
Completion Time – You’ll get a lot of time out of this game because it’s all about playing multiplayer.
7 out of 10.
Mario Kart Wii At A Glance |
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7.0 |
The Good |
Steering wheel is cool for the first couple of hours. Inclusion of Miis. A return to SNES simplicity. |
The Bad |
The amount of money you paid for other steering wheels. Can win or lose matches based on chance. Bottom of the barrel characters. Tracks aren’t unique. |
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Good |
The Verdict |
Worthwhile experience for just about everyone ... Buy it. |
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