For the most part, it's the same old Mario Kart you know and love, with a generous helping of online goodness.
As you'd expect, Nintendo hasn't messed around too much with the core driving mechanics. This is still the frantic racer it's always been; the banana peels fly, short-cuts are hidden away on every course, and you can't relax until you cross the finish line. Everything you know and love is still here, but there are a number of additions that make it tick a little better. For a start, races now consist of twelve competitors. There's more mayhem than ever, and it actually makes the game a bit more user friendly. Skilled players will find it more difficult to pull away from the pack seeing as more shells and other assorted power-ups will be whizzing around the track, allowing less experienced players more of a chance to finish higher up in the table.
To continue with the theme of making Mario Kart even more user friendly, each copy of the game comes with the Wii Wheel, a steering wheel shell for the remote to sit in. Do you remember your parents playing racing games in the past and twisting the controller as they turned corners? Now that twisting will actually control your car. It's a well-made peripheral that's comfortable to hold and intuitive to use, but it just doesn't feel as responsive as an analog stick. You'll get the occasional bout of under-steer and over-steer, which really makes drifting round corners more difficult than it needs to be. Competitive players will probably want to spurn the wheel in favour of one of the more traditional controller set-ups, such as the Classic Controller, GameCube pad, or the remote-nunchuk combination. All are responsive and easy to use, so it's just down to personal preference.
But if you're determined to make the most of the pretty plastic wheel that Nintendo made such an effort to promote, you'll be glad to know there are two modes of transmission to makes things a little easier for you. In Mario Kart land, transmission has nothing to do with changing gears; rather, it determines how your kart drifts and boosts. Automatic transmission initiates a drift automatically as you start to turn a corner, which is particularly handy for the wheel users. That's great and all, but what's the point of manual transmission? Manual requires a little more dexterity on the player's part. You'll need to press a button (dependant on which control set-up you're using) to start the drift and control your car to make sure you stay on course, but you get the benefit of drift turbo-boosts. If you drift around a corner for long enough, sparks will kick up behind your wheels and, after you finish the drift, you'll get a small boost. Holding a drift for longer can get you a bigger boost, but you'll have to pick and choose which corners you try that on. Needless to say, manual transmission is a requirement if you want to go in search of record-breaking time trials.
Once you're all geared up and ready to hit the tracks, you'll find a familiar array of game modes to choose from. Grand Prix consists of the staple 50cc, 100cc, and 150cc engine classes (along with the unlockable Mirror 150cc where the tracks are reversed). You race against eleven CPU players over a four-race competition to see who takes the gold. The only difference is that each class is limited to a certain type of vehicle. 50cc is a kart class, 100cc a bike class (yes, bikes!), and 150cc lets you choose either. Burning around on the bikes isn't just a gimmick though; compared to their four-wheeled cousins, the bikes are far more nimble and have the ability to do wheelies, which gives you a short speed increase down straights. The trade-off is they're not as robust as the karts and can be barged around the track more easily, and they can only achieve the standard drift boost when playing in manual transmission. It's a welcome addition because it gives the racing a twist (even if it's just a small one) but they're just as easy to use as the karts and don't unbalance the game.
Eight cups consisting of four tracks each are available on each engine class, and for the most part, the courses are great fun. The new tracks feature some surprisingly original elements, most notably Mushroom Gorge's bouncy toadstools. What's more disappointing is that of the 32 courses, only half of them are new. Four of the cups are "classic" themed and are made up of courses picked from previous games in the series. Some of the best tracks of yesteryear make an appearance (DK's Jungle Parkway from the N64, Ghost Valley 2 from the SNES), but you still can't help but feel a little cheated that only half the content is original. Some of these courses are (purposefully) dated, but the original ones are impressively colourful and sharp-looking. The range of classic and re-mixed Nintendo anthems are the perfect accompaniment, punctuated by the cries of Mario and company as they get thwarted by a lightning bolt of fall for that fake item box.
Although you can only play the regular grand prix tournaments in single player, you can create competitions with your own selection of tracks with up to four players locally. Battle mode also makes a return and can be played with up to four on the same Wii, but the fact that the mode is now team-based and time-limited means you'll probably spend more time racing. It's an unnecessary set of forced rules which don't do anything to make it more fun. Time trials are there for the speed-demons who crave to shave seconds off of their lap-times (and you can unlock staff time trial ghosts if you're quick enough), but the online support is where Mario Kart Wii really comes into its own.
Although it's plagued by the over-protective friend code system (like every other online Wii game), the online racing and ranking system is top notch. Finding a game worldwide, by your continent, or with friends is easy and doesn't take more than a few minutes. Once you're in the race, you'll be pleased to know there's barely any lag at all, regardless of the geographical locations of your competitors. Races are smooth, so you'll have no excuses if you start crashing all over the place. Ranking is handled with a single figure and there's no leaderboard as such; your rank appears next to your name in the lobby so you can see how good you are in relation to the rest of the room. However, time trials are one aspect that is very well supported in the leaderboard department. You can see how you stack up against your friends, your continent, or the whole world and even download ghosts to test your mettle against the best of them.
All of these fantastically streamlined online features are contained within the Mario Kart Channel. You can get here from the main game menu, but if you don't mind adding one more channel to the main Wii menu, you can access all time trial rankings without even having the game in. You'll get alerts when friends send you time trial challenges, and if you want to take them on straight away, it's a matter of popping the disc in and getting straight into the action.
Mario Kart Wii is an impressive overall package, and judging by the great online support, an indication that Nintendo is starting to take online gaming more seriously. If you want a fun racer that can be enjoyed by yourself, with family and friends, and against the world, it's definitely a game for you. It hasn't strayed very far from classic Mario Kart conventions (perhaps most noticeably in recycling half of the courses from old games) which might be of some concern to the long-term future of the franchise. But in the here-and-now, Mario Kart is still a blast, and that's all that matters.