Best Wii game I own at the minute
Mario Kart Wii is one of the best racers I have ever played in my life, as well as being my favourite game on the Wii at the minute.
There are a total of 32 courses in the game overall, half of which are old retro courses the others are completely new. These courses are divided into 8 cups with three different difficulty levels. There are plenty of unlockable characters and vehicles. There are different stats for the vehicles and characters, so you can think about which character and vehicle combination will do best on the certain tracks. i.e. heavey weight will be good on linear tracks due to their high top speed, but light weights will be good on tracks with bends due to their good handling. My favourite characters are Yoshi and King Boo.
The control scheme is what makes the game fun for me. Using the Wii wheel or just plain Wii-el for lazy people like me. You put the Wii-mote in the Wii-el and turn it left and right like a steering wheel. For those who don't like the Wii-el there is an option to use the GameCube controller or the Wii-mote and Nun chuck. They make the game play easier but less fun in my opinion.
Gameplay is the same as any other racer like this. You drive along the track picking up item boxes to get offensive weapons such as shells, defensive weapons such as bananas and other things such as bullet bills and mushroom boosters. In this game there is an option to set the power sliding technique to either auto or manual. Auto will simply let you go past corners with out loosing speed or needing to push any button, but in manual once you press the button to power slide your kart or bike will begin to spark after a second or so, release the button and you will get a turbo. Unlike previous Mario Kart games, waggling the stick/rocking the d-pad back and forth will not make sparks appear, time causes them to appear in this game.
As well as the grand prix mode, there are also other modes. Time trials obviously. Team races put you in a team with AI driven opponents and you compete in a four track cup to see which team gets the most points, unfortunately in the is mode the AI of your team is noticeably dummer than the opposing team meaning even if you are first in every race, your team may not win overall. There is also a battle mode where you collect coins in a team to see which team gets the most coins overall - again the AI of your team may let you down. There is also a balloon battle mode, which I haven't checked out yet, I will edit this when I do play it.
However me moaning about the dumb AI is simply nit picking. This game would have received a perfect 10 from me if not for one thing. During races if you are in first place you will be abused alot and this will lead to several losses. You can be in first place for ages and be on the final stretch on the last lap when suddenly your radar starts beeping. BANG you get hit by a blue shell. Okay but still in first place. ZAP you get hit by lightning and shrink and slow down. The closer you are to first position the longer it will take for you to get back to normal size meaning people will catch up if they're not far behind. Okay second place - maybe you can still place in first. Radar starts beeping THWACK red shell hits you - fourth place. Then a heavy weight character can hit you and knock you off narrow platforms. sixth place. A bullet bill speeds past now you're seventh. That doesn't happen in every race fortunately, but expect it a fair amount.
Anyway moaning aside, this game is also great for multi player. If you can get a few friends or relatives to play this with you you'll all have a blast.
The graphics in this game are good. And so is the music. Other technical aspects such as controls and camera are also fine. But like I said the AI can be a pain at times.
I seriously recommend this to anyone who has a wii. It's a great game despite that one flaw. Get some friends to play it with you and it's even more addictive.
EDIT - people have copy pasted my reveiws. So here's the seal of Milesprower2k9 original reveiws