Mario Kart Wii, put simply is pretty much the antithesis of Mario Kart 7. Where the latter has a lack of options and not much game to return to, the former has absolutely tons of useful options and all kinds of well thought out game modes. Where the latter had a disappointing character roster, the former plays it safe and shoves in every fan loved character in Mario history bar Shy Guy and Petey Piranha. And where the latter had the best tracks in the franchise, Mario Kart Wii kind of has the worst.
But we'll start with the positives first, and in that sense Mario Kart Wii is one of the best designed games in the franchise. Indeed, you want to know why everyone still keeps playing it years later and why it caught on so much at the time? Because it had everything you'd expect from a Mario Kart game to the point Mario Kart 7 had the choice of either having the same features or getting bashed for lacking them. Basically, Mario Kart Wii put in every feature you could remotely want in a Mario Kart game, and any later games are going to have to compare or die.
In fact, here's a bunch of useful things it had that made things better:
Other good points of the game include the excellent character roster and the vast variety of karts and bikes you had to choose from. Okay, the former was a little too 'conservative', it added the 'safest' choices for characters possible, every generic spinoff character and party game stand in got a playable role in Mario Kart Wii and it did lack Shy Guy and Lakitu, but it worked none the less by including mainly the characters people actually cared about rather than the likes of Metal Mario and Honey Queen.
Karts and bikes were good too, with a nice variety to choose from and character specific colour schemes. Not as open to player choice as in the DS game (where anyone could use any kart), but there were definitely enough good ones for each weight class and most of the karts/bikes had their equivalents in all three 'tiers'.
Graphics and music were nice enough too, a nice step up from those in Mario Kart Double Dash and a huge improvement from the notoriously blocky graphics of Mario Kart 64 and DS. Nothing much to say here, it wasn't exactly Smash Bros Brawl quality textures and models, but they looked nice enough for a Mario Kart game.
The game was also great fun to play, the bikes really did add a few interesting things to the racing, the added amount of players kept the game somewhat more interesting (random, but hey, that might be for the best with the 'casual' gamer crowd). Multiplayer worked well too, and online was actually fairly decently designed this time around and didn't have the stupid track restrictions found in Mario Kart DS (why the hell can't I play Airship Fortress and Waluigi Pinball online? At least Mario Kart 7 fixed that).
Unfortunately, the game isn't without its flaws, and the biggest one is probably the track selection and design. It's... a very mixed bag to say the least. On the one hand, the better levels like Maple Treeway, Rainbow Road, Bowser's Castle, DK Snowboard Cross, etc were fantastic fun to play and worked really well. Unfortunately, some of the other selections just didn't work and weren't that fun to play, meaning it felt like the track list was rather lacklustre.
Some of the worst examples included:
Another issue is a game balance issue relating to bikes. Yes, we get it, Nintendo tried to make the bikes useful and not too much like a gimmick. Unfortunately, they succeeded TOO well. Not only are the bikes useful, but they overshadow the karts to the point the karts are nearly entirely useless in comparison. Okay, so they can't get a more powerful boost from drifting. Who cares, they drift inwards and hence can take the corner tighter anyway, pulling off more mini turbos total and saving more time regardless. And wheelies are basically 'snaking' 2.0, if you're against a bike using them and you're in a kart, you won't win without items. Not to mention only a very few vehicles were actually useful, turning this into Funky on Bowser Bike Wii.
Admit it, this is the only guy worth playing as...
Items are another issue, they're both ludicrously overpowered and more common than ever due to having 12 people in every race. Not only do you have the Blue Shell and Lightning to contend with, but the rest of the pack unleashing shells, bombs and stars by the bucketload. And the POW block is arguably the most infuriating new item in the series due to how it hits the entire pack and causes everyone to lose their items. Which results in a mass 'fire them at everyone in sight' barrage as players desperately try and get the last scrap of value from their items on hand.
Best not to mention the Lightning Cloud, should never be remembered again.
Finally, there's one more issue from what I hear. Exploits and hacks. You see, thankfully, the 3DS has never been hacked. And double thankfully, no one's using glitches online due to them being patched. Mario Kart Wii was neither of these luxuries.
As a result, what you have is supposedly one of the worst hives of online gaming scum and villainy ever to exist, perhaps second only to the likes of Metroid Prime Hunters. Infinite streams of powerful items are shot by hackers swearing revenge on each other and everyone around them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlWYXj96PWI
Glitches are used by everyone who knows them, and with the Grumble Volcano one making the ones in 7 look tame... yeah. None are patched either.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssea3f2nU5U
then, this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPIcXCm06w4
Wifi bluffing, how fun. Not to mention time trials where people let the counter overrun, because whenever it passes the max number, it loops back round to zero seconds. From what I hear, this type of stuff + huge amounts of VR getting taken if you lose means Mario Kart Wii's online is a pretty miserable place nowadays.
None the less, what do I think about it?
I think Mario Kart Wii is a fantastic game. It's fun to play, especially when you've got friends round, it has an absolutely massive amount of replay value with all the options included and why there are some problems with items and track designs, they don't often take away too much of the enjoyment value. If you want a great Mario Kart game and don't already have it for whatever reason, buy it now, it's worth every penny.
But we'll start with the positives first, and in that sense Mario Kart Wii is one of the best designed games in the franchise. Indeed, you want to know why everyone still keeps playing it years later and why it caught on so much at the time? Because it had everything you'd expect from a Mario Kart game to the point Mario Kart 7 had the choice of either having the same features or getting bashed for lacking them. Basically, Mario Kart Wii put in every feature you could remotely want in a Mario Kart game, and any later games are going to have to compare or die.
In fact, here's a bunch of useful things it had that made things better:
- Time trial leaderboards
- Competitions
- Single player everything (like vs and battle mode)
- Multiple ways of unlocking characters and karts
- Automatic and Manual drifting settings
Other good points of the game include the excellent character roster and the vast variety of karts and bikes you had to choose from. Okay, the former was a little too 'conservative', it added the 'safest' choices for characters possible, every generic spinoff character and party game stand in got a playable role in Mario Kart Wii and it did lack Shy Guy and Lakitu, but it worked none the less by including mainly the characters people actually cared about rather than the likes of Metal Mario and Honey Queen.
Karts and bikes were good too, with a nice variety to choose from and character specific colour schemes. Not as open to player choice as in the DS game (where anyone could use any kart), but there were definitely enough good ones for each weight class and most of the karts/bikes had their equivalents in all three 'tiers'.
Graphics and music were nice enough too, a nice step up from those in Mario Kart Double Dash and a huge improvement from the notoriously blocky graphics of Mario Kart 64 and DS. Nothing much to say here, it wasn't exactly Smash Bros Brawl quality textures and models, but they looked nice enough for a Mario Kart game.
The game was also great fun to play, the bikes really did add a few interesting things to the racing, the added amount of players kept the game somewhat more interesting (random, but hey, that might be for the best with the 'casual' gamer crowd). Multiplayer worked well too, and online was actually fairly decently designed this time around and didn't have the stupid track restrictions found in Mario Kart DS (why the hell can't I play Airship Fortress and Waluigi Pinball online? At least Mario Kart 7 fixed that).
Unfortunately, the game isn't without its flaws, and the biggest one is probably the track selection and design. It's... a very mixed bag to say the least. On the one hand, the better levels like Maple Treeway, Rainbow Road, Bowser's Castle, DK Snowboard Cross, etc were fantastic fun to play and worked really well. Unfortunately, some of the other selections just didn't work and weren't that fun to play, meaning it felt like the track list was rather lacklustre.
Some of the worst examples included:
- Both Sherbet Land and Shy Guy Beach, which were about 90% offroad, making most karts useless. The former also has turns so sharp many karts just can't take them at top speed.
- Yoshi Falls is just crap, and was as boring as in Mario Kart DS.
- Mushroom Gorge is annoying as heck
- Ghost Valley 2 was a lazy choice of SNES track
- Mario Raceway was rather bland
Another issue is a game balance issue relating to bikes. Yes, we get it, Nintendo tried to make the bikes useful and not too much like a gimmick. Unfortunately, they succeeded TOO well. Not only are the bikes useful, but they overshadow the karts to the point the karts are nearly entirely useless in comparison. Okay, so they can't get a more powerful boost from drifting. Who cares, they drift inwards and hence can take the corner tighter anyway, pulling off more mini turbos total and saving more time regardless. And wheelies are basically 'snaking' 2.0, if you're against a bike using them and you're in a kart, you won't win without items. Not to mention only a very few vehicles were actually useful, turning this into Funky on Bowser Bike Wii.
Admit it, this is the only guy worth playing as...
Items are another issue, they're both ludicrously overpowered and more common than ever due to having 12 people in every race. Not only do you have the Blue Shell and Lightning to contend with, but the rest of the pack unleashing shells, bombs and stars by the bucketload. And the POW block is arguably the most infuriating new item in the series due to how it hits the entire pack and causes everyone to lose their items. Which results in a mass 'fire them at everyone in sight' barrage as players desperately try and get the last scrap of value from their items on hand.
Best not to mention the Lightning Cloud, should never be remembered again.
Finally, there's one more issue from what I hear. Exploits and hacks. You see, thankfully, the 3DS has never been hacked. And double thankfully, no one's using glitches online due to them being patched. Mario Kart Wii was neither of these luxuries.
As a result, what you have is supposedly one of the worst hives of online gaming scum and villainy ever to exist, perhaps second only to the likes of Metroid Prime Hunters. Infinite streams of powerful items are shot by hackers swearing revenge on each other and everyone around them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlWYXj96PWI
Glitches are used by everyone who knows them, and with the Grumble Volcano one making the ones in 7 look tame... yeah. None are patched either.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssea3f2nU5U
then, this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPIcXCm06w4
Wifi bluffing, how fun. Not to mention time trials where people let the counter overrun, because whenever it passes the max number, it loops back round to zero seconds. From what I hear, this type of stuff + huge amounts of VR getting taken if you lose means Mario Kart Wii's online is a pretty miserable place nowadays.
None the less, what do I think about it?
I think Mario Kart Wii is a fantastic game. It's fun to play, especially when you've got friends round, it has an absolutely massive amount of replay value with all the options included and why there are some problems with items and track designs, they don't often take away too much of the enjoyment value. If you want a great Mario Kart game and don't already have it for whatever reason, buy it now, it's worth every penny.