Does Mario Kart for the Wii Live Up to Expectations

Mario Kart has been one of the most successful Nintendo driving games over the years, and has been launched across all their games consoles since the SNES (Super Nintendo).

The version of Mario Kart for the Wii has been out for a while now, but how does it measure up compared with it's previous incarnations.

I loved Mario Kart on the SNES, which I know is going back a few years, but it was a very playable game, a lot of fun to play, especially against another player, even if the graphics left a bit to be desired.

The graphics on the Wii version of Mario Kart are by comparison superb. There are a selection of classic tracks, from all the previous consoles that Mario Kart was released for, plus a number of great new tracks, 32 tracks in all.

On previous incarnations of Mario Kart, the players were limited by the length of the cables on the controllers, and it was a matter of pressing buttons to drive, however Mario Kart for the Wii comes with a plastic steering wheel that you can fit the remote controller into, giving your driving a much more realistic feel. Additional wheels are a touch expensive, but compatible ones can easily be had (Wal-Mart, Amazon), and they are nothing more than a device to hold the remote, there are no electronics or buttons in them.

Mario Kart for the Wii brings back all your favorite characters from the Mario adventures, plus you can now play with your own Mii as well. Previously versions had different types of karts and buggies, but the Wii version now also has Motorcycles, which add another dimension to the racing.

One of the coolest features is that if your Wii is hooked up to the Internet, you can play Mario Kart against other friends on their Wii systems, as well as against other people who can be anywhere in the world. It's a lot better than playing against the computer.

I do however have several grouches about Mario Kart, and maybe it's just me, but here they are:

Firstly, I feel that there are too many places where you can fall off the track. That adds a real frustration factor for me, since you only have to fall off once to go pretty much from first to last position in a race. I actually prefer the simpler tracks, which don't have holes in them, and where the skill is in your creating driving, rather than your ability to remember precisely where to not fall off into the abyss.

Secondly, in Battle mode, I found it much easier to see where my opponents were on the SNES, and to try and line myself up to attack them, or to try and dodge them. The Wii version of Mario Kart has better graphics, but it's not as easy to see your opponents as on the SNES, which is half the fun of playing in battle mode. This is true even of the original SNES battle mode courses, which are included on the Wii, since the viewing angle is more horizontal than it was on the SNES, making it harder to see an overview of the course.

Yes the Wii version of Mario Kart is a great game, but what adheres me to a game is not so much the graphics as the playability and long term fun, and having played the game for a few days, I found that I was preferring to race on the more basic courses, where I could try to improve my skills through pure driving, rather than falling into the abyss just once during a race and ruining my statistics.

Sources:

Personal Opinion

Official Nintendo Magazine