Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Just plain fun"

Mario Kart Wii,which I'll refer to a MKW is a fun game that's easy to pick up and play and is fun for all ages.I've played 4 other Mario Kart games which include Super Mario Kart,Mario Kart 64,Mario Kart Super Circuit and Mario Kart DS and this is my favorite Mario Kart game out of all of them even though the other Mario Kart games I've played were great too.

As you'd expect,MKW has some wacky circuits such as ones that make your vehicle bounce across mushrooms and failing to land on a mushroom/back on the circuit will send you falling and make you lose a lot of time.There's tracks that have animals running across them or road traffic on them and tracks where sections of the track will be moving and going in the opposite direction or same direction as you which could result in you doing that section much slower/quicker.There's tracks where you can fall into lava/hot liquified steel or where you need to dodge rotating walls of fireballs or types of dirt/mud that can slow your vehicle down and many tracks have places where your vehicle can fall off the track and make you lose lots of time.

The tracks include 16 new tracks and 16 tracks that were in the previous Mario Kart games.I like how the game uses some of my old favorite tracks such as the track that's on a beach and the fast track that has the castle in the background,while still adding new tracks.

I like how the tracks can vary from a fast paced circuit with a castle in the background,to a track that's on the beach,in the desert,in a factory,on a city road,on a track with the Super Mario World style green hills in the background,inside Bowser's castle,on a long,twisting rainbow,dirt tracks with lots of jumps,in rural areas amongst farm animals,on narrow European style city streets etc.

The Wii wheel works very well and allows you to turn the vehicles much sharper than with a D-Pad on a controller.In MKW,to win any race that's above the 50 cc class,you can't rely on simply driving the fastest to win those races because other drivers will shoot your vehicle with turtle shells or that blue shell will pound your vehicle(if you are near the front)or spin you out by transforming into a bullit bill,so you'll need to make use of the power-ups that allow you to shoot other drivers with shells or that give you extra speed bursts to regain the lead.The power-ups can be collected when you drive around the place but it's easy to miss them if you're not careful because you could easily drive past them or another driver might collect them before you do.In MKW, hitting an obsticle just once can stop you winning a race and avoiding them isn't as easy as it sounds because some animals walk across the track or you could be hit by traffic on a city road that's coming head on at you because you didn't have much time to react to it or simply pushing too hard can result in you falling off the track and losing a lot of time.This makes the races more unpredictable.

Like other Mario Kart games,MKW allow the bigger,heavier drivers to knock the smaller,lighter drivers out of the way or even off the circuit.But the smaller,lighter drivers have quicker vehicles.

MKW allows you to use motorized bikes and not just karts.Each character can select from 3 different types of karts or bikes.There is races that are only for cars,or only for bikes or that allow both cars and bikes.Out of each characters 3 karts and bikes they can select from,they will have kart/bike designs that look like traditional style motorbikes and go-karts and bikes that look very high tech and karts that look like race cars.Incase you're wondering,using the wheel to steer a motorbike works just fine and is much easier than trying to use a controller would be.

The game is very colorful and charming and the creative track designs and variety of track themes/environments make the game fun to play.For example,one of the fast racing circuit style tracks has a view of a castle in the background and rainbow and trees and it looks charming.I love racing on the beach and seeing the beautiful blue water right next to me on one side and the seaside village on the other.I like how the track with the Super Mario World style green hills gives the game a nice old school feel too.

This game is fun to pick up and play and the 50 cc,100 cc and 150 cc difficulty levels mean that a young child could enjoy the 50 cc mode and an adult would be tested by the 100 cc or 150 cc levels.

Even though it's not the deepest racing game,it's still very fun and relaxing to play and is one of the most playable racing games around.