Gran Turis-Mario

Mario Kart Wii

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Platform: Wii

Price: $49.99 (Shop.Ars)

Rating: Everyone

With successful outings on the Super Nintendo, N64, Gameboy Advance, Gamecube, the DS, and even in arcades, the Mario Kart series makes its Wii debut with Mario Kart Wii. The game continues the series' traditions admirably, offering a bit of a "best of" feel while moving the game play forward enough to qualify as a worthwhile evolution of the series.

While Mario Kart Wii does live up to Nintendo's first-party software standards, there are some issues; this isn't a perfect piece of software. But the few issues do not undermine the reality that Mario Kart Wii is a fantastic racer that will make an addict out of casual and hardcore gamers alike. With a huge array of courses, refined mechanics, online play, and more, Mario Kart Wii is one of the best racers around. And given that Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is still warm in our PS3s, that's saying a lot.

I could eat a Peach for hours



For those not familiar with the series, Mario Kart Wii is a fairly straightforward racing game involving familiar Nintendo characters in go-karts. A number of items are strewn about the varied courses that can be used to help you or hinder others as you race for the finish. It's accessible in principle, but the combination of tactics, items, and creative tracks makes the game a dynamic and often challenging experience.



Old and new collide in Mario Kart Wii as classic courses and items are joined by new ones

The game's presentation is simple, so don't expect to flip the game on for the first time and be amazed. Though Nintendo has made some great game play changes over previous incarnations, the game's visual and aural presentation has seen little improvement. Aside from 480p and widescreen support, the game looks and sounds almost identical to its GameCube predecessor, though the steady frame rate is welcome.

Most of the energy was spent stuffing the game with a ton of content. Once a license is created and linked it to a Mii—the license tracks a ton of statistics about online and offline results, preferred vehicle and character, and more—players can dig into the game's many choices of play.

The requisite Grand Prix mode headlines the solo experience, supplemented by solo Time Trial, Versus, and Battle modes. Grand Prix will be the first stop for those hoping to unlock the game's wealth of hidden content. Sadly, the two-player cooperative version of the GP has been removed: this means that unlocking content must be done alone—a shame, as there's quite a bit of content to unlock. I won't spoil the surprises, but completing the game is going to take quite some time.

From the get-go, players have access to 12 characters, six vehicle variants per character, and 16 courses. Playing through the single player will slowly unlock more courses, new characters, and better rides.

The introduction of motorcycles spices things up a bit. The traditional 50CC, 100CC, and 150CC class division remains—roughly positioned as easy, medium, and hard—but the divide is quite different this time around. Initially, in 50 CC, racers will only be able to use karts, while 100CC is restricted to bikes, and 150CC is a free-for-all. Regardless of what ride you pick, though, characters in Mario Kart Wii are still divided into three unwritten weight classes: light, medium, and heavy. These weight classes determine the available vehicles for each character. Each weight class can chose from three bikes and three karts of varying specialties, and more become available as the player progresses. Don't expect to be a master of bikes quickly; the vehicles handle differently than karts.

New items join the list of series staples like the turtle shells and banana peels, as well—and the new items mesh quite well with the old favorites. Stand-out additions include the "Lightning Cloud," which infuses the game with a little Hot Potato action as players desperately try to pass off the cloud before it erupts by ramming into each other, and the "POW Block," which unleashes a devastating earthquake.



The bikes add a great new dimension to the racing action

It's in the course selection, though, that one realizes just how much content Nintendo has included in Mario Kart Wii. Eight tours with four tracks a piece totals 32 different tracks. This is where the "best of" feel to the title kicks in, as old favorites like "Ghost Valley 2" from the SNES and "Waluigi's Stadium" from the GameCube join newcomers like "Wario's Gold Mine" and the "Coconut Mall" alongside new takes on "Mario Circuit," "Luigi Circuit," and more. It's a bit of a hodgepodge of old and new, but it works. The same goes for the game's Battle maps, which also draw on old and new to round out the roster of courses. Oh, and the new "Rainbow Road?" Unbelievable.

Without a solid driving engine, though, all the content in the world couldn't save the game from being a toss away. As a self-professed Mario Kart guru, I approached this new title looking for those little nuances that make Mario Kart so great. What I found surprised me.