Mario Kart Wii

THE GOOD:
- 24 characters to race as; the huge selection is awesome to see; tons of returning characters and tons of new characters that finally made it into MK; finally there is a good selection of characters in certain classes (8 in lightweight, 8 in middleweight, and 8 in heavyweight)
- 32 maps to race on; there are 16 new tracks and 16 tracks from past games; new maps add so much innovation to the series, using the Wii wheel and new gameplay aspects (such as jumps and tricks) to boost the games fun; old maps have many ‘Wii’ improvements
- Tons of karts to use
- Amazing graphics, probably the best of the series
- More fun than ever before
- You can race using karts, cars, bikes, scooters, motorcycles, and so much more
- Great amount of unlockables: characters, vehicles, etc.
- Free Wii Wheel! Adds a great new aspect to the racing series
- Awesome multiplayer game; play against CPU players or friends
- Go online...

THE GOOD:
-24 Characters (excluding your own MII)
-16 Brand new courses, and 16 old ones
-Stunts
-Big variety of Bikes and Karts
-Wi-Fi
-Plenty of Replay-Value
-12 Players
-Wii Wheel
-Music

THE BAD:
-Shells seem to hit you way more often

SUMMARY:
Mario Kart WII is already the sixth installment in the very famous Mario Kart franchise. Starting from Mario Kart on the SNES, to Mario Kart Super Circuit on the GBA, to Mario Kart WII. The game is for all ages. Little children can have fun racing their family with the wheel, while some older people can compete with other players online.

Gameplay

Alright, so let's start this off by talking about the Gameplay. Of course, you can race on 50cc, 100cc, and 150cc. 50cc being for starters who slowly learn to race (Karts only), 100cc for some of the better players (Bikes only) and 150cc being for the fast-paced experts...

If the miracle of science one day makes time travel possible, the first thing scientists should do is find out the exact amount of times people have sworn throughout history and then calculate what percentage of these obscenities were aimed at Mario Kart. I'd honestly be surprised by anything less than 50%, because for every stubbed toe or finger-jammed-in-door experience, there are at least ten Blue Shells hurtling ominously towards whatever players had the balls to try and come first. Such is the nature of Mario Kart, a series that promotes itself as family friendly but is really just a home wrecker in disguise.

For those of you as new to gaming as the Playstation 3 is to being a worthwhile purchase, then let me give you a quick run down of what Mario Kart is all about:

It's Mario, in a kart. Moving on.

This series has been so successful because it is the epitome of the "pick-up and play" mentality. Doing marginally well requires little...

THE GOOD:
Controls are easy to get used to, especially with the Wii Remote. The Wii Remote adds more fun to the game, as you control the steering by tilting the remote. The advanced stats make it so there is a kart/bike/character combination that perfectly suits anyone's driving style. Each character adds a little to 2 stats. Funky Kong is used to set many World Records in Time Trails, along with Daisy and Toadette, because of their character stat boost.

Online play gives you something to do after beating the game and getting stars in the Grand Prix can challenge even some of the best players. Getting a Star in every race on every CC will give you a star ranking online. When playing online on Worldwide or Regoinal, the Wii matches you up with people with around the same amount of Versus/Battle Points as you.

Also in Mario Kart Wii is the Mario Kart Channel. While on this Wii Channel you can race in tournaments, compare your Time Trails scores with...

THE GOOD:
- Characters
- Tracks
- Karts and Bikes
- Stunts
- Online Play
- Music

THE BAD:
- Certain Controls

SUMMARY:
Mario Kart Wii, being the sixth installment in the famous Mario Kart franchise. The game, much like the others, is very fun and aimed more at the younger audience. However, with WiFi and the wheel control used in this game, it brings the whole family together to have a laugh and some fun.

Gameplay:

The gameplay is very frantic, just like the previous games. As before, there are 50cc, 100cc and 150cc differences. The speed is slow and steady on 50cc, a good time to practise the handling, whereas on 150cc it's very fast paced and it really puts your skills to the test where you race to avoid items and the tracks challenges.

Another new feature would be Stunts. You can perform stunts after driving over a boosted ramp, or practically...

THE GOOD:
Very Smooth Online Play
The New Wii Wheel
Easy Controls
A lot of New Characters
Great Courses

THE BAD:
Wii Wheel Can Be Hard To Use Sometimes
It Can Get Very Boring

SUMMARY:
I came home from the store with my copy of Mario Kart Wii. I had a ton of fun playing with an excellent cast of Nintendo characters, listening to good music, playing on stages with amazing graphics, and hitting my brother with koopa shells. Mario Kart Wii is one of the great games on the Wii. Of course it can get very boring at times but even if you play a little each day you will have a ton of fun.


Controls:

Well all the gamers that bought Mario Kart Wii were introduced to a new type of controller, the Wii Wheel. What seems to be an excellent piece of technology at first is really a piece of plastic shaped into a wheel with a spot where you put in your Wii Remote. However I tend to use the Wii Wheel...

Mario Kart Wii

Opening Thoughts

This game is magnificent. Really is probably the best game I've played on the Wii. It features intuitive controls, great gameplay, two good ways to get your competitive gaming in, all in one, family friendly game. It features all of the characters we loved from the Mario series, like Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong, Peach, Bowser, you get the picture. But it also has a decent amount of spinoff characters, like Funky Kong, the Baby characters. It also even features the little villains that usually aren't portrayed majorly in games, such as Dry Bones and Koopa Troopa. The Mario Kart Channel is awesome, seeing time trials and tournaments really help this game be, in my opinion, the best WiFi Wii game to date. But the main reason the game gets that title from me, is the actual racing online aspect of it. 12 players all over the world with no lag is simply amazing, since Nintendo can't handle a regional...

THE GOOD:
-25 Playable Characters (Including Mii)
-12 Racers
-12 Racers, online
-5 Control schemes
-2 Players on Wi-fi
-32 Courses
-Mario Kart Channel
-Replay Value

THE BAD:
-Red Shells are impossible to avoid
-Computer seems to biased at times
-Uses pre-made messages to contact friends

SUMMARY:
Mario Kart Wii is the 4th console game, or the 8th Mario game in general. With this new addition to the collection Nintendo seemed to break the traditional Kart boundaries slightly; some good, some not so good, but all fit well into the series.

-------Control Schemes-------
-Wii Wheel-
As Nintendo promoted, this control scheme is actually a pick up and play control scheme. It's simple, unique and most of all, it works. With simple controls as 2 to accelerate, 1/B to break, A to look back, flick the Wii Wheel up down left or right to perform stunts and the directional pad for launching...

THE GOOD:

Some interesting New characters.

Great New tracks.

New items doubles the fun!

Even more fun with online play.

Even more karts!

Wii Wheel works well.

New feature is that you can ride bikes.

Great battle mode.

THE BAD:

They took out two people per kart.

Wi-Fi is quite laggy.

One player can get quite boring, its better when racing with friends.

SUMMARY:
This is the new Mario Kart we've all been waiting for but is it really that good as expected? Sure it looks good but to me it wasn't as great as expected to be perfectly honest.

The new items are great; some examples are the mega mushroom and the pow block. The mega mushroom makes you huge and if you simply bump into someone they will be flattened and also your speed is increased. The pow block shakes the ground for your opponents and then sends them spinning.

Yes...

THE GOOD:
- Online is one of the best on a Nintendo system to date.
- The voice overs are pretty well done
- Most of the courses are fun to play on
- Controls are great once you get used to them (depending on what you are using)

THE BAD:
- Graphics could be much better
- People may see the AI as cheap
- Wii Wheel could be hard to get used to for some people.

SUMMARY:
Mario Kart Wii is the latest installment to the Mario Kart series and the first installment on the Wii. The game comes with the new Wii Wheel, which is to give a more realistic steering experience. If you prefer not to use that, you may still use the Classic or GameCube controller to play.

Mario Kart Wii lets you have up to twelve players race to the finish in a multi-lap race around a given course. Like previous Mario Karts, players may use items and take shortcuts in order to earn first place. A new feature in the game would be the...