Mario Kart Wii Review

The latest installation of the Mario Kart series is not very originally titled Mario Kart Wii. It's not much of a surprise that Nintendo would try to revive the series because it has released a Mario Kart game for almost every one of its systems. This game tries to take full advantage of the Wii's motion sensing capabilities by having the player strap their controller into a steering-wheel shaped piece of plastic. This is a rather pointless addition to the game though because you can just as easily play without, thus brining up the question of its existence. I shouldn't be too hard on Nintendo though, at least they succeded in making the steering wheel look cool. However, my enjoyment in looking at the controller soon subsideded when I started to acutally play. To make a simple turn I tryed turning the controller slightly but because that had no effect I turned the controller entirely thus careening me off the side of the road. I finally got the hang of turning after a few attempts and gameplay became slightly more enjoyable. The games assortment of happy-go-lucky characters quickly got on my nerves though. I could'nt figure out if they had all had strokes or if they Nintendo was just lazy because each character has a vocabulary of about three words that they feel the need to use over and over again. If that isn't enough to drive you crazy the power ups will, once you're doing good enough to take the lead in a race the game will be kind enough to give another player a blue shell that flys the entire track just to find you and blow the hell out of you. Quite frankly, thats the problem with the entire game all the power-ups are so strong they practically cripple your opponent or they're so weak you might as well just shoot a water pistol at them instead. Aside from the racing aspect of the game there are a few mini-games in which you are expected to use power-ups against your opponents to pop their balloons, the games add a nice break from the racing but are too small to be considered a big addition to the gameplay. Overall Mario Kart Wii isn't a bad game, but it isn't a great game either considering the fact that there is a Mario Kart game released for Gamecube. I would recommend this game if you are a die-hard Nintendo fan and follow the series but if you looking for a serious racing game this below average cartoon style game will ultimately disapoint you. I give Mario Kart Wii a 6/10.
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