MKW plays like classic Mario Kart, but also has alot of new additions, making it one of the best Mario Kart games yet.
Mario Kart Wii feels familiar to its predecessors in alot of ways, but Mario Kart Wii might just contain the most drastic changes the Mario Kart serious has seen, except the change from 2D tracks to 3D tracks in Mario Kart 64.
The biggest change probably is that you are now allowed to play your favorite Mario characters also on bikes and not only karts. Fortunately, the bikes prove to be a very good addition to the serious.
They handle a bit different than the karts, they are more articulated, and are better for the more experienced players while the karts are better for the beginners. Both bikes and karts serve for beginners and experts very well though. There are alot of other changes though: There is the stunt system where you can perform tricks when flying from any ramp, and if you do so, you get rewarded with a boost as soon as you land on the ground. It works really well.
Now, every vehicle has an own special ability. When driving with a bike, you can perform a wheelie, which lets you drive a bit faster, but for the price you can't steer your bike very well and bumping into another driver slows you down drastically. Karts on the other side have an advantage with the drift boosts. Both karts and bikes can perform a normal boost when drifting long enough until a blue spark comes to sight out of your tire (it works very well by the way), but when driving karts you can drift longer so that a orange spark appears to get a super boost that holds on probably like 3 or 4 times as long as the normal boost. All in all the karts and bikes are very good balanced.
Another change is that there are now 12 drivers instead of 8 drivers that participate in a race. This serves both for the good and bad: the good about it is that the races are more competitive and because of that more exciting. The bad thing about it is that things can get very unfair and unbalanced at times. But more to that later.
Now the gameplay is once again great. To start a race you can choose between multiple control ways: The most original control way is the Wee-wheel. You put your Wii remote into an empty wheel and then you can use the wii-remote like a real wheel as if you are steering the kart your self.
Though it may be hard to believe, the wii wheel works really good and responsive. If the Wii-wheel isn't your type of controls, than a nunchuk plus Wii-remote or an classic controller as well as the gamecube controller will also do it, maybe even a bit more responsive.
The racing is, as in all Mario Kart games fast paced and really fun. There are sixteen new tracks scattered into four cups and sixteen old tracks also scattered into four cups. The new ones are all awesome: They are very well designed and work with the bikes and the new trick system very well. The sixteen old tracks are also mostly good. Though most of them fall short on supporting the trick system due to so few ramps, most of the old tracks should still appeal to gamers nowadays, though a few tracks like those from Super Mario Kart do fall short because they are so simple designed.
The tracks, especially the new ones also hold a neat number of shortcuts that are sometimes cleverly hidden. Of course this game wouldn't have been a Mario Kart game if it wasn't for the items. And there are alot of them. All of the old items except the Boo Hoo appear in the game, and there are 3 new items that also mix things up: a mushroom that lets your driver grow huge for a short time and a powerblock that lets every driver in front of you rotate are a great addition to the Mario Kart game. However, the lightning cloud contains mixed reactions. Once getting the item a cloud appears above your drivers head, charging its lightning bolt. Once it is finished, you get hit from the lightning. Except if you slam into another driver. If that happens, then he gets the lightning cloud instead. To give you any chances, at least you do drive a bit faster than usually when having the lightning cloud charging above you. Though the concept is unique and interesting for this item, mostly it just feels like a punishment whenever you get this item, and it leads to several frustrations especially when playing online. And when playing with the AI, sometimes they are able to drive as fast without any item as you with the lightning cloud charging above you, and that especially can be frustrating.
Now to the modes: There aren't any new ones. There is still grand prix, time trials, versus and battle mode. Most of the time you'll probably spend on grand prix, because that is the mode where you'll unlock most of the unlockables.
Time trials is just as you have it in memories and versus, except with a few twists in the setup is also very identical to the versus modes of previous Mario Kart games. Battle mode however does have a big change, for the bad though. You can now only play in teams. Why Nintendo made this choice I will never understand.
Now, the only real flaw in this game is the unbalance that takes part in the races. The AI, though a bit better than in Mario Kart DS, is still unfair and sometimes there are still only 3 main AI drivers that win every race in one grand prix (obviously, those 3 are the ones with the most points), while all other drivers just constantly lose, making it difficult to win a grand prix if you lose in only one of the four races. This wouldn't be a problem if the AI driver who won the grand prix earned it, but that isn't really the case most of the time, sadly, which makes the challenge feel a bit cheap. The AI sometimes has unfairly high speed, especially the 3 AI drivers that have collected the most points in the previous race(s), particularly then if they are losing at the moment, and to top it all, the other AI drivers without so much points let them pass, as if they don't care. Which makes you wonder why there are 12 racers participating in a race and not only 4. The 3 best AI drivers also seem to mostly get the items they need. And all of the AI drivers are able to steer their bikes flawlessly when performing a wheelie. Also, the AI doesn't follow all the vehicle stats, more specific, the speed, handling and drifting, turning slow vehicles into very fast ones and hard to handle vehicles into easy to use vehicles, and that feels kinda unfair too, especially if you are using the same vehicle like one of the AI drivers. And so the conclusion in my eyes is that it feels like you are driving against overpowered AI drivers. So why are we still able to win against the AI? Because their actual driving isn't that good, especially in courses like Rainbow Road where AI drivers fall off the track a lot of times, often at places where you have to be pretty stupid to fall off the track there. So I think I have the right to say that that should be the other way around: there should be no unfair advantages for the AI that you don't have but for that the AI drivers actual driving should be better. Just as bad is the unbalanced item system. Getting hit from shells or other items 2 or 3, sometimes even 4 times in a row isn't that fair anymore, and because there are now 12 instead of only 8 drivers participating in a race, the game gets very chaotic. Sometimes even a bit to chaotic. This and the often unfair AI makes Mario Kart Wii far from unplayable, but it does lead to some frustrations.
Outside the single player modes there is also multiplayer, both local and online. Local Multiplayer is just fine. You can play split screen with up to four players, though when playing with 4 players the game only runs in 30 frames per second and not in 60. You also have a worse overview of the tracks when the screen is that little for one player. With that said, it still is fun to play this game with some friends, but it doesn't even come near the awesomeness of Mario Kart DS's local Multiplayer mode.
However, there is also online play, which is absolutely awesome. It's lag free, it works really fast and the races still remain in top quality.
The concept looks like this: At first you have 5000 points, but then by winning races you can earn more points, but if you loose you can also loose points. Sounds good, it is, admitted. Though this also can lead to even more frustrations. Because the game is so unbalanced you can easily loose alot of points although you only lost because the game was unfair, and that can be really frustrating.
Even so the online Multiplayer is still awesome. You can also share friend codes with other people, and then you can take place with your friends in a private race or you can also look if one of your friends is driving over Wii-fii and then join him/them in the race. It works really, really well.
The last thing the game has to offer is the Mario Kart channel:
Here you can participate in competitions or see who has the world record in a stage from time trials. It's another great addition to the game. You can also download the Mario Kart channel to your wii menu so you can use the channel without the disk. It isn't really worth it though. If you want to play anything in the channel, the Mario Kart Wii disk is required, so there is very little you can do in the Mario Kart channel without the disk.
All in all Mario Kart Wii is a great entry into it's successful franchise and a game any racing fan, particularly any Mario Kart fan needs to play. Even though the races are unbalanced, the game manages to stay fun with a hell of alot content, awesome tracks and great controls, tied up with simple but charming visuals, and an awesome online Multiplayer that leads to some real, memorable fun, even though it's flawed with some frustrations. In the end however, Mario Kart Wii is worth the bug.
THE GOOD
+ more competition in single player races
+ great designed tracks
+ big variety between controls, and all work very well
+ motorcycles are awesome
+ lots of content
+ lots of neat additions to the actual racing gameplay
+ online multiplayer for up to twelve players, which works amazing
+ good fun for players of any skill level
THE BAD
- races never have been that unbalanced
- battle mode only playable in teams
Review Score: 8/10