Mario Kart: Wii - 8/10

Mario has had a long career. Starting out over twenty years ago this middle aged, Italian plumber made a name for himself by stomping on mushrooms, saving a fine *%& princess from a lizard/dinosaur/turtle shell wearing bad guy and eating mushrooms that made him grow. As with all careers Mario has changed jobs, starting out as a hero he then went into a deep depression of %$^itty #%sed games and spin offs titles after his last outing in the N64 days, relying on his sporting talents in Golf and Tennis, paying off some !@*%#^s and hosting party games for a certain white powdery substance.

Mario redeemed himself with the release of Mario Galaxy, a great outing that saw us go into the far reaches of outer space, once again to save the princess and the mushroom kingdom. I thoroughly enjoyed Mario Galaxy, but like having a third nipple, you are excited but already knew what to expect and while the implementation of gravity and story was good, it certainly wasn’t as mind blowing at Nintendo talked it up.

Once again we are hit with this syndrome with the newly released Mario Kart for the Nintendo Wii. As fate would have it while Mario spends a majority of his time trying to stop Bowser from taking over the Mushroom Kingdom, he also likes to spend three months of every year racing with him in the hills and remote sections of the kingdom. While not mind blowing, the most important ingredient to the game’s success is that it is fun and just works.

Basically it’s the same format we have come to expect, there are a bunch of different CUPS that all have a set of four tracks in which we race along to become the victor and unlock new vehicles and characters until we finally finish the game. Funnily enough this gameplay was fun when I was six and still is now. Nothing has really changed to the game mechanics, minus the addition of motorbikes this time around. They do drive differntley compared to the karts, but once you get used to them you will be racing around like Lindsay Lohan in the middle of a DUI.

Implementation of multiple control methods is fantastic. Being able to play with the Gamecube or Classic controller is a godsend, and makes veterans of the game feel right at home. The WiiWheel works well, but the operator needs to get used to the movement and feel of it all, but after an hour I found myself turning like a pro and feeling right at home, yet I still preferred the Classic Controller. But unfortunately for those of us who don’t adopt the WiiWheel, like the government giving disadvantaged autistic penguins a payment, the WiiWheel players have a feature that cannot be used by controller wielding players. When going off jumps a simple flick of the remote makes you perform a stunt and upon landing you get a speed boost. This is unable to be performed by players not using the WiiWheel setup, which is total bullocks.

So controls are great, gameplay is nothing new but still has that fun formula that we have become used to, how is the online features? Well to say that this is the best Online game I’ve played on the Wii thus far would be an understatement. While you still need to use the broken and utterly retarded friend code feature, you can see which friends are online, what they are doing and if you can join them which is a bonus. I played a game worldwide, once the twelve players had joined the game, each player was shown on a world map telling me where they were from. I was racing against four members from Japan, two in Germany and the rest were from England. We launched into the game and I was expecting a little lag, but none WHATSOEVER. Finally a Wii game online that simply works lag free, and what is more it’s fun. I soon found myself ditching the single player component all together and spending hours online.

Mario Kart has always been about multiplayer, so not only can you jump onto WFC by yourself, but you can also bring a friend along on the same console, double the online fun.

So what’s the verdict? While just spewing out more of the same, but adding in a few features and keeping the fun factor to a maximum Mario Kart Wii is a great step forward for a timeless series that has been replicated by other franchises but none of which compare to this classic. I would recommend it to just about anyone with opposable thumbs, that enjoys having Fun and has friends to play this online

8/10

You can check out the Uncut and full review on my blog
rebornonline.wordpress.com

heller 11/04/2008

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