I remember playing the original Super Mario Kart for the first time. I remember thinking that Nintendo characters doing something other than their standard was a weird gimmick, but unlikely to have any legs. In my defense, I was only 12 at the time. I remember thinking that it was patently unfair that Mario and Luigi got unlimited invincibility, and that Toad and Princess got an unlimited supply of an item I couldn't even get. But even still, I soldiered on until I got gold cups in everything. Right from the beginning, Mario Kart grabbed a reputation for being simple to grasp, filled with all sorts of little things to find, and having a punishing opponent AI even compared to most racing games. It's hard to believe, but now the game's sixth iteration, Mario Kart Wii, is in our hands. How does it hold up to past efforts?
First, the basic premise, for those who haven't noticed the series before now – Mario and many of the crew from his various video games race each other on go-karts. They go through all sorts of courses thematically similar to levels in games and fitting the character – Mario and Luigi have fairly simple race tracks, while you have to dodge all sorts of traps in Bowser's levels. And you get various items to use to attack your opponents and boost your speed, all for the chance to grab the gold and become the best racer possible. Fairly straightforward.
The most notable shift that this game has going for it is that it's packaged with the Wii Wheel, a plastic shell you can stick the Wiimote inside so that you actually control similar to an actual go-kart. However, much like Super Smash Bros. Brawl before it, you can also have just a remote on its own, use the remote with the nunchuck, use a Classic Controller, or even a plugged-in Gamecube controller. And to be honest, thank heavens they offered that option. You'll quickly note that despite the gimmick holding up for casual play, actually becoming great at Mario Kart requires using either a Gamecube controller or something plugged into the bottom of the Wiimote. The wheel is fun for messing around. And if that's all you want, you can stick with that and maybe even buy a few more for when friends come over. But if you actually want to win, then you'll want something else, and the Wii Wheel shell will just gather dust.
Fortunately, however, even using the wheel, the control is still fairly fluid. While you aren't able to react as well by using the wheel, all of the control schemes are fairly intuitive, and it's still quite possible to do a solid job running through the game going in completely blind. My wife hadn't touched any Mario Kart game in nearly a decade and was able to just slide right in. Newcomers to the game don't have to worry about wrapping their brains around it, and veterans of the earlier games will find everything fitting like a glove.
The only real adjustment in terms of the controls you remember is that building a boost on manual steering requires just holding the button to slide while leaning into the turn – you no longer can get a boost in a heartbeat with rapid wiggling of the controls. This is Nintendo's response to snaking, and for the most part it works. I can imagine that someone with the Gamecube controller, racing on a very wide track, could still snake and cheat that way, but it would be much more difficult, and to be honest the game now has enough ways to build speed that it's not necessary. So congrats to Nintendo for getting rid of a certifiable game breaker.
There are two notable additions regarding the controls. First off, you can select bikes. Granted, you can't select them on 50cc races until you've cleared all the cups at 50cc, but otherwise you can pull them out and get a completely different feel for the racing. They handle much differently, and even the "low handling" bikes maneuver much better than the karts they are counterparts of. On top of that, you can actually get a speed boosts on straight-aways by moving the wheel up or tapping up on the other control schemes and pulling a wheelie. To compensate, the karts can build an extra level of turbo boost when powersliding through turns, and when you consider that each character weight class can get six of each type of vehicle, you have plenty of options for how you want to run your races.
Perhaps the most difficult part of the new setup to get used to are the tricks. Whenever you launch yourself in the air, you can do tricks by wiggling the wheel/remote, or using the d-pad for the Classic or Gamecube controllers. This can be difficult, as the wheel/remote solo combo can be a bit insensitive towards the controller motion, and you'll probably have to move your thumb off the steering to pull them on the other two. However, once you get the timing down, it results in some great speed boosts and some wild moments – like taking a shortcut in SNES Ghost House 2 by powersliding into a ramp and doing a trick while flying sideways over a gap. Honestly, it's a thrill to blast through.
Though speaking of blasting, you can't avoid talking about the game's AI. Veterans of the series know full well about how ridiculous the AI can be in Mario Kart. Always able to dig up blue shells to target you if you're in first. Being able to run races much faster than you should you pull off an excellent shortcut (anyone who knows the shortcut in the N64 version of Rainbow Road knows exactly what I'm talking about). Oh, and perfect aim at nearly every opportunity. Well, in one respect, the AI is much more sensible – it now always runs a race at a realistic pace. If you're really able to open up a huge lead, it's not going to be able to suddenly go Mach 3 and catch you in half a lap. Finally, the computer obeys the same speed restrictions you have – while it can also turbo and trick its way through courses, it's nothing you couldn't do.
The flip side, though, is that the items this time are absolutely brutal. And its timing is obscene. I don't know how many times the computer has used the lightning bolt just as I've grabbed an item box, to deprive me of an item to use myself. Hitting me with a red shell to send me running right into a plume of gushing lava is another computer favorite. And let's not forget the classic time when the computer hit me with a blue shell, a red shell, a POW block, a green shell, and invincibility within seconds of each other. And once I started to rebuild speed, a heavy character hit me full speed and knocked me off the course. You want to know the worst thing about it? That's not even the worst run I've had (I once was hit eight times in rapid succession). This is probably due to both a reconfiguring of item frequency (fourth place can get blue shells now, which is just evil) and the racing field expanding to twelve (so now there are four more people getting powerful attack items in the back).
Probably the most frustrating part of the positively bloodthirsty computer drivers is that there are quite a few unlocks that require not only getting the gold in a cup, but getting a rating above an A for the entire cup. Like every other ranking system, it goes beyond A – single, double, and triple stars. And several of the unlocks in the game can only be obtained by getting star ratings for every cup in a given class. Not too bad when we're talking the 50cc retro cups. But going through the 150cc Wii cups? There's a reason I've shouted at the game to use some freaking Vasoline next time. It just hurts how much it attacks you from behind.
The multiplayer options, in general, are much stronger this time. In addition to the standard race modes and "pop the balloons" battle modes, you have two new modes – team race mode (in which you try to have as much of your team win the top spots as possible in a race), and team battle mode (in which you either try to collect as many coins for your team or you try to pop the other teams' balloons). While it's certainly nice to see the classic types of multiplayer, it's also great to finally be able to team up with a friend simply to pound the computer into oblivion.
The online multiplayer is rather notable – Nintendo is starting to inch ever-closer to getting online gaming right. You can race with friends, or just do online matches with up to 11 random folks – and you can even have two people on the same Wii looking for online matches (it plays like a split-screen two-player match). The online rankings are much like that for Tetris DS, for those who bothered with that – you start as a base of 5000 points, and you move up or down based on your place, the number of opponents, how well you did, and your comparative rankings. Moreover, once the race finally loads, it runs like a dream. Sometimes, you have a bit of slowdown on the loading screen, as it won't start until everyone is ready. Dealing with 11 others and at least one slow connection can give a load time of nearly a minute. But once everyone is properly loaded and connected, the race goes off without a hitch. I was worried my timing would be thrown off by lag, but I had no problems even in a crowded field. This is a huge step up from dealing with a wall of lag any time you tried to play against more than one other person in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
The flaws are still there, though. First, insert your favorite complaints about the lack of voice chat here, along with whining about onerous Friend Codes. I would have liked it if Nintendo also had thrown in some stock phrases you could say – simple stuff like "Nice race," or a simple "GG". Also, maybe the option to get friend codes for people you had a fun time racing against – I can think of a few people already that I wish I had gotten codes from, but couldn't because the system doesn't work that way. It seems Nintendo is finally getting down making sure the games run when going online. Now they just have to work on making a fun interface between gamers. Not exactly holding my breath there.
One part that merits discussion is track design; the courses are the heart of the game, after all. Overall, I'll give them credit for coming up with some neat builds, but I'm left shaking my head at how shockingly short most of the courses are. Just as I feel like I'm getting my feet wet in a course, it's over. This is exacerbated by the fact that the retro courses brought back go by much more quickly than they ever used to. It might be a product of being better than I used to be. But I feel like they made the courses a tiny bit smaller while making the vehicles faster than before, with the end result being me plowing through races like it's nobody's business. I like having some longer courses in the mix, and only the new Bowser's Castle, Grumble Volcano, and the current version of Rainbow Road really give me that.
By the way, that reminds me – when are we going to get the definitive repackaging of Rainbow Road through the series? It's always the last track of the game, but it's different each time. I love each one – why is it that they never bring back any of the previous versions for the retro races in the game? Heck, if Nintendo had offered a special edition of the game for twenty bucks more that had a Rainbow Road Cup attached, I would have snatched it up in a heartbeat. Those were some of the most insane courses ever – please bring them back.
The game's graphics are extremely solid, though the details are mostly there for the racers and the karts. If you ever pay attention to the background when you're stopped (like, say, after the computer hit you with the third red shell in a row), you'll note that they're fairly dull and blurry textures in most places, though some of the distance objects look just fine. You can tell how much skimping is done in any course with an audience – your various Miis will be there, but you'll only see their heads on colored sticks – couldn't they have sprung for limbs, at least? However, the characters racing are animated well, with very smooth movements even while doing tricks or falling to their doom (complete with burn-up on re-entry on Rainbow Road).
The music is much what you'd expect from a Mario game at this point – mostly bright and peppy, with a few "sinister" tracks for Bowser levels and the appropriately airy theme for Rainbow Road. It's very suitable background music, and you might find a tune or two worth humming later on (I like the theme from Maple Treeway). It won't set the world on fire, but it is a very yeoman's soundtrack. The voice acting is where the game is fun – particularly with the humanoid characters, as they're obviously quite into the race. Nothing is as amusing as hearing Daisy do her best Nelson Muntz imitation when she gets a foe to spin out. Plus, the effects are quite solid – often the best warning you have about an oncoming attack is the audio cue, and overall it's worth keeping the sound on for the entire experience.
Mario Kart Wii is fairly fun, although I do have to wonder how much play it will get in single-player mode. In multiplayer, you just have a blast with your friends. Online, you can have smooth games at will. But against the computer, you'll swear that Torquemada and not Miyamoto was responsible for this. Half the time, it feels like you win based on luck and not skill, and that's really a bad way to go through a game. Mario Kart Wii is fun, but that's tempered with the sheer frustration from the AI. This will undoubtedly be yet another Wii success, but I can't help but think this would be a blockbuster if only the series as a whole didn't feel like a practice in sadism.
