May 24, 2008 11:21

Mike Doty

Mario Kart hit stores a little less than a month ago. Are you considering picking up a copy for your Wii? If so, you might want to rent the game before you buy it.

When you start your first race of Mario Kart, you'll probably maintain a strong level of excitement. After all, it will seem like a wonderful continuation of previous iterations such as MK64 and MKDS. When you quickly make your way through the pack and sail into first place, you'll feel even happier. Then the fun slows down.

Powerups have always played a key role in the Mario Kart games, and often they enhance (rather than detract) from the experience. However, Mario Kart Wii has unfortunately drifted away from the "fun powerups" side of the line and into the "frustrating powerups" side of said line. Once you have established a lead in the race, you can expect to encounter a bombardment of various powerups destined to leave you languishing in the back of the pack.

You must be thinking to yourself, "Mr. Reviewer, that happened in all of the other Mario Karts too. You're just not any good at Mario Kart." I admit that I have not taken exact measurements of the frequency of falling victim to powerups while in first place in Mario Kart Wii, let alone having compared this statistic to similar measurements in other Mario Kart game. Regardless, the mathematics of the game make an empirical increase in powerup suffering inherent and indisputable.

Such as to say, Mario Kart supports up to 12 players now. (I can't recall the precise number of combatants in MKDS.) As such, any time you have the lead in a race, 11 computer opponents will have a powerup with which to attack you. The increased traffic on each course also leads to plenty of frustrating pinball action for those that enjoy using the lighter vehicles. This near overpopulation of competitors makes itself especially apparent in retro stages, such as Mario Circuit 3 from the original Super Nintendo Mario Kart.

When playing a game with friends, though, you can have a lot more fun. Instead of having 11 other players casting various aggravating powerups upon you, you can more peacefully contend with 3 or 4 other players. The online functionality works very smoothly when you're actually racing. You will rarely if ever see indications of lag or other network problems. (You might, though, have a bit of trouble getting your wireless router to cooperate. If push comes to shove, you can pick up an Ethernet-to-USB converter from any electronics store and use a wired connection.)

When it comes to game setup, though, Mario Kart Wii's online mode fails to satisfy. Do you prefer not to play mirror mode?; do you prefer to always play mirror mode? With Mario Kart Wii's online system, you have no choice. It randomly decides on a game mode and you can either race or disconnect. Also, you of course have no voice communication with your friends or opponents. You know not to expect this by now from Nintendo, but it noentheless remains a letdown. Possibly more frustrating than anything else, though, is the lack of an option (even in Friends races) to control or even disable powerups; more than anything, the introduction of the worst powerup in Mario Kart makes this true.

Mario Kart Wii, you see, has introduced a new "bad powerup." Just as you can get helpful powerups such as the banana or a green shell, you can now get a bad cloud. This cloud will follow you around for a few seconds and then shrink you as if another player had used lightning on you. You can give the cloud to another player by bumping into them, but when you're playing a 2 player race and you've fallen behind by a couple of seconds, this avenue of escape won't present itself to you. When you get two bad clouds in a row, you'll realize the lameness of this new "bad powerup."

The newest Mario Kart also disappoints in the area of new courses. A lot of the new courses just don't seem to have the same fun factor as courses in previous games. Highlights include the new Rainbow Road (a very challenging but rewarding course), Bowser's Castle (they rarely disappoint), and Wario's Gold Mine (a very nice-looking course). Most of the 10 battle courses don't seem very inspiring. Fortunately, the battle mode itself does present a fun distraction from racing.

In battle mode, the game divides all players into 2 teams. (If you are playing with 3 players, this will obviously create an unfair advantage.) You will then compete for 3 minutes for either the highest score (in Balloon Battle) or the highest coin count (in Coin Runners) between the 2 teams.

Lastly, you probably have heard about the Wii Wheel. Other articles have suggested that the Wii Wheel presents the least effective control scheme available; most advise against using it. If you are playing against strong competition or if you want to achieve the fastest possible times, you probably indeed shouldn't use the Wii Wheel. However, I don't mean to suggest sliding around the corners and moving in general presents a problem with the Wii Wheel. Rather, performing midair tricks with the Wii Wheel seems practically impossible.

Most of the Wii games use the Wii remote's motion sensing abilities in one way or another way. Many of the games, sadly, make poor use of these abilities. Mario Kart Wii seems to have joined that club. Theoretically, you can shake your Wii Wheel around while in midair to perform a "trick" that will grant you a speed boost upon landing. Real worldly, you can raise the Wii Wheel above your head and whip it around like a lasso and the game will still fail to recognize your desire to perform a trick. In contrast, alternate control schemes such as the Classic Controller simply require you to press a button on the controller to perform one of these tricks.

Regardless, the Wii Wheel does make for a fun experience as long as you don't need that occasional speed bonus. You might even manage to get the tricks to work with the wheel. Probably, though, you'll have trouble getting it to work; you'll want something different (control scheme-wise). This aptly sums up Mario Kart Wii: Though it proves fun at times (especially when playing friends online), you might end up wanting something different (like a previous version of the game).

Rating: 3.7/5