Summary [8 out of 10]
Mario Kart Wii is the 6th Mario Kart game in the racing series, but it is the first to add motorcycles and 12 player support online.
Introduction
In my quest to justify buying a Nintendo Wii by finding fun games for it finally let me to playing Mario Kart. The last Mario Kart version I played was on the Nintendo 64. If you have payed past versions of Mario Kart the new one follows the same formula of kart racing with power-ups to whelp you either take out the leaders or protect your lead. The one big change is the addition of motorcycles which are really fast, but so light they are easy to bump off the road if you watch for them. With 18 characters and 32 tracks there is a lot of variety in the racing available.
The Good
- Lots of characters and karts to choose from so you can find one that best fits your racing style.
- Continues the great formula of arcade style kart racing.
- Online play with 11 other people is a lot of fun.
- There are a lot of controller options available.
The Bad
- The motorcycles are so fast that once they get the lead it is pretty much impossible to catch them.
- Online races can be very laggy.
- Some of the karts are clearly better than others to use. They could use some balancing to make them more fair.
Conclusion [8 out of 10]
I’m really enjoying playing Mario Kart on the Wii both against the AI and split screen with my friends. Playing on line has been pretty laggy and all the good players already know every shortcut and the best vehicles to use so winning online is pretty much not happening for me. One you find the few vehicles that are the best to use there is really no reason to play with any of the others, but it is nice they are there for when you’re playing with friends causally. I’m still not sure why they decided to add motorcycles because they are more annoying than fun, but overall Mario Kart on the Wii is really fun.
I really rate Mario Kart Wii – Yeah sure it’s basically the same as every other version, but there’s the usual Nintendo polish and playability that makes it a great game for the Wii.
Mario Kart Wii is cool! Your review is somewhat flawed in that you never played Mario Kart Double Dash and the Wii version continues in that style while there are again just one driver instead of two.
I highly disagree with what you had to day about online lag while playing others,I have at times played 20 or so online races in a row without a problem. Now if you are talking about the time between the races,yes THAT is annoying….but the race itself is cool. The online feature is one of the main reasons I got a Wii….so I could play people online in Mario Kart Wii.
However,if I had one complaint about the game it would be that it should have had more tracks! The next Mario Kart games should have every track from every game from Super Nintendo to the present and a few new ones.