And here's all the not-so-good stuff
For the veteran Mario Kart driver you won’t be at all surprised to find that we’ve a total of eight cups to compete in, of which the first four all have four brand new tracks each. The other four cups are made up of classic Mario Kart tracks from all the previous versions from the SNES right up to the DS. The last two cups in both the new and classic sections are locked and, as you progress through each cup, you’ll unlock the later cups along with new characters and kart and bikes to race with.One of the features of Mario Kart is the Wii Wheel, which comes packaged with every game. So of course I used this for my first few races… and after that I was desperate to try out the other control methods as the wheel just isn’t responsive enough. I’m wondering if it’s a connection issue as using the Wii Remote either fitted into the wheel, on its own or with the nunchuck all threw up the same occasional complete lack of response when trying to turn into a corner.
Click for larger imageSure, it’s only happened a handful of times but going from the first place and a possible clean sweep of firsts for the cup to a lowly sixth place and second on the podium is supremely frustrating, especially so when I was either twisting the wheel so far I nearly dislocated my elbows or snapped the top off the nunchuck joystick. But I found everything behaved perfectly using either the Wii Original controller or one of my GC controllers. Wires, see?
So despite now owning a Wii Wheel, I played the entirety of Mario Kart on the Wii using my GC controller. I was happy with the Wii Remote and nunchuck set-up, using the joystick on the nunchuck for steering, but after missing a couple of turns and losing too many places, I switched to something I felt was more reliable.
Click for larger imageThe races themselves are still the same fantastic blend of racing skill and excitement but bloody hell; can your opponents get anymore vicious? As we know from the previous versions, if you’re in the lead you can kiss goodbye to any power-ups that might give you a speed boost such as the invincibility star or even the basic mushroom. All you get if you’re in the lead is bananas, green shells and the odd fake power-up box. Essentially, you’re at the mercy of the eleven other racers behind you.
In the later cups this means that you will very likely get hit with everything from red shells and squid attacks through to lightning strikes and that bastard blue spikey shell. But such is the bunching of the pack that getting hit by just one of these means you’ll drop not just one or two places but six or seven… or even down to dead last! Is this frustrating in the extreme? I guess that depends on your idea of fun… but after having raced all the cups and lost the last two races from being blown up, hit with two red shells, lightning struck and then barged off the map, all in quick succession I’d say it falls on the side of frustrating.
Click for larger imageBasically, the AI in Mario Kart Wii has been tweaked so that winning the later cups in the higher CC classes really comes down not so much to racing skill and whether you use the course to your advantage but to pure dumb luck. Sometimes the line between winning and losing can be so fine as a single nudge early on in a race will make the difference between winning and placing 4th. And I swear the AI goes unnaturally faster than it should… just try out the time trials and see if you can figure out how a ghost kart with a slower top speed can overtake you on a flat out straight…
