Mario Kart Wii

In the year 1992, the humble SNES was granted a racing game by the name of Mario Kart, and as the name suggests, it's a racing game featuring some of Nintendo's most famous characters. Since then, an executive somewhere around the upper rungs of the Nintendo ladder declared in their own blood that every Nintendo console made from this date would feature a Mario Kart game.*

(*probably).

That fateful day has partially resulted in Nintendo being pretty much franchise dependant, repeatedly remaking Mario, Zelda, Metroid and now Mario Kart games. Never mind that, though, it's a strategy that seems to be working for Nintendo, seeing as they're the oldest competitor in the console wars.

So, it's 2008 and Nintendo's current console line-up is the handheld DS (which has had a Mario Kart game since 2005) and the Wii. Now it's the motion sensitive device's turn at carrying on the Mario Kart torch, and if you've ever played a racing game on the Wii, you'll know this is tricky business. As far as sequels go, Mario Kart Wii has a lot of reasons to be pretty pissed off. Mario Kart: Double Dash has amazing graphics, beautiful levels, a solid control scheme and a really interesting mechanic of having two characters per kart that even reacted to turns properly.

Considering the Wii isn't that much more powerful than the Gamecube, any Gamecube sequels on the Wii will need some interesting features, possibly involving the player dancing around the room as if ablaze. You can imagine the scene already, Double Dash is talking to a crowd of fans while wearing a fancy cravat and generally looking very famous and successful. Then Mario Kart Wii comes storming in wearing the same cravat and punches Double Dash in the face, screaming "How can I be better than you?!" in frustration.

I'd love to be able to say that the problem has been solved with some good old imagination, but the only newish features I could find were the occasional boost-inducing half pipe (which is only really useful in one place), and a small segment of the Cape Kooper track, but is unfortunately a clean steal from a much cooler entire F-Zero GX track. We also get the exact same battle mode features as the DS version, and the same idea of 4 cups of new tracks and 4 cups of retro tracks. It's just a shame that they're the same retro tracks as on the DS version too.

If I were to compare the motion sensor control scheme to the Nunchuk/Wiimote scheme, I'd have to say that the former is quite drunk. There's also the fact that the Blue Spiny shell is still buzzing around, and yes, it still needs the arse nerfing off it. So it doesn't look too good for Mario Kart Wii then, it's a dodgy mash up of Double Dash and Mario Kart DS, and consequently suffers from the chronic "samey-ness" that cripples any new games in this modern, competitive world of interesting mutations. This is the point where I'd start thinking of rude things to say about a game suffering from this problem, but I wont. Read on...

Mario Kart, you see, is a game were everything is balanced precariously, and everyone towards the front of the pack is going to suffer like hell at the fortunate hands of the simpletons at the back. What this does is it keeps people playing together, no matter of how retarded some players may be, as is the whole point of the Wii itself, ewe si? This means that the game actually remains fun, no matter how much of an obnoxious, geeky obsessive you play against, because you'll always be able to ruin his life and laugh at it thanks to the game's seemingly ridiculously unfair weapons. (Actually, "ewe si" pretty much means "female sheep yes", not what I just said, but I'm making a point and playing with words OK?).

If you want to unlock all the levels and characters, and you do, then you should just ignore the free wheel you get with the game and play with the Wiimote and Nunchuk - but don't, by any means, go shove it up your arse or anything. In fact, go buy more for however many Wiimotes you have, because when you want to play Mario Kart Wii with other people, again you do, put the Nunchuk away and play with the drunk option. Yeah, it's not perfect, but it does actually work surprisingly well. I expected to pick up the Wiil (or whatever they call it), turn it and eventually go hurtling in the wrong direction; but no! It responds really well to turns, and although it will still send you careening off the edges of courses at embarrassing rates, it's just much more fun playing with your friends that way.

It's also fun watching people in general twitch and twist while holding pieces of white plastic, and that's exactly why I've made a sport of watching these people from the trees outside their houses.

In all fairness, you'll play much better with a Nunchuk, Classic Controller or Gamecube Pad, but by now everyone's already really good at playing Mario Kart, and it's much more fun getting used to steering with floating white wheels. What I'm trying to say is that Mario Kart Wii shines like, well not a diamond, more like amber because it assumes you only ever want to play in rounds of 4, but yeah, in multiplayer mode, Mario Kart Wii shines like amber, by bringing back the fun of Mario Kart.