The Red Carpet Treatment

Hardcore gamers seem to be constantly whining about Nintendo’s huge new focus on the casual market but in reality, no one has anything to complain about. The Wii has only been on the market for eighteen months, and Nintendo has been hard at work pumping out great new installments of most of their core franchises. To date, Mario, Zelda, Smash Bros. and Metroid have all received the ‘red carpet treatment’ and earlier this week, Mario Kart joined the Wii ranks as well.

Mario Kart is a franchise that has existed since the Super Nintendo days, and every new installment has tweaked gameplay mechanics while keeping the core experience virtually unchanged. Mario Kart Wii keeps that tradition, offering up fun yet accessible racing while changing some features to accommodate the Wii’s split audience. Some changes are for the better, but others are definitely for the worse. Let’s start with what works.

The Wii Wheel

Mario Kart Wii’s biggest new offering is the ability to race sans an analog stick, using the Wii remote sideways, or snapped into the Wii Wheel. All steering is handled via tilt, and for the most part it feels great. The amount of control you get with the Wheel in hand is simply unparalleled; and although you’ll probably find yourself over- or under-steering at first you’ll quickly warm up to the new control scheme. If you don’t want to give the tilt controls a chance, Nintendo also gives players the option of using the Classic Controller, the Gamecube Controller or the Wii Remote and Nunchuk combo. All the methods give the players the relative ease of the analog stick and the latter seems to work best. The brand-new trick system works better when mapped to waggle.

The trick system is deceptively simple, but adds huge amounts of depth to the racing mechanics. At the peak of your jump, you can shake the remote or hit a button on the D-Pad to make your character do a trick which will give you a mini-turbo upon landing. This new mechanic never seems to throw the balance off and feels like a seamless addition to the overall Kart formula. The system is accessible enough for both vets and newbies to instantly get a hang of, and both groups will find themselves looking for any chance to get airborne to pick up a substantial speed boost.

Track Design

First and foremost in the track designers’ minds was obviously the trick system. The sixteen brand-new tracks feel almost like F-Zero, with copious amounts of jumps and half-pipes. The track design always feels totally fresh and is all in all one of the most imaginative Mario Karts yet. You get updated versions of series mainstays Bowser’s Castle and Rainbow Road, which are as fantastic as ever. But there are a few others that will probably worm their way into your top ten tracks. DK Summit is a ski slope filled with pipes and sharp turns, and Dry Dry Ruins has lots of traps to impede your progress.

Mario Kart Wii also features sixteen tracks from past games, but unfortunately these retro tracks don’t fair as well as the new ones. Many of the tracks are D-listers, and the only really stellar choices are DK’s Jungle Parkway and Bowser’s Castle, both from the n64 iteration. Nintendo has tried to place jumps to help accommodate the tricks, but there’s seldom more than one or two in each course and the experience definitely takes a turn for the worst without it.

Dumb-ing it Down

Hardcore players will definitely start to feel a sting, however, when it comes to the amount of single-player options. When you play solo you can compete in a Grand Prix to earn trophies and gain access to a predictable trail of unlockables, play against computer players in races or battles for fun, or record your best time in Time Trials. Incredibly basic stuff and a huge step back from Mario Kart DS which also offered up genuinely fun missions. On the multiplayer front you can compete with up to four friends in battles or VS races. The VS races handle just like you’d expect, but noticeable changes in the Battle Mode are hard to swallow.