LazyViews: Mario Kart Wii

Intro

The latest instalment of Mario Kart comes to the Wii with a brand new wheelshaped controller to stick your Wiimote in.

Good

• It's Mario Kart!
• The wheel controller works well. It's a bit weird pointing a wheel at the screen when you are using the mouse pointer, but as a wheel it's good.
  
• You can ride motorbikes as well as driving karts, and the bikes are a lot of fun.
  
• You can unlock the ability to drive as Miis so you can take on Mario et al. If not then look out for yourself in the crowd.
  
• The new tracks are really interesting and show off the new gameplay like tricks when you are jumping and the new drifting system
  
• You can engage in Wi-Fi play with your friends around the world or randoms
• You can download ghost images from top experts at the game from around the world, or from people who are just a bit better than you and find out how they do it and try and beat their times.
  

Bad

• Some of the items you pick up or get hit by feel a bit unfair or unbalanced. If you've been battling hard to get up to 5th place with Bowzer continuously knocking you off the track and someone picks up a Billy Bullet and shoots past you and off into the distance you're likely to be hurling your controller in rage faster than a stupid Canadian who failed to plug his laptop in properly would throw his laptop at the wall.
  
• Leading has never been great in Mario Kart but now it's easily the worst place to be, you can get hit by all kinds of nasty shit and your defensive items basically suck. I've even read a strategy guide entry that says on the tougher 150cc races the best tactic is to sit near the back and have a big push towards the end of the race.
  
• Some of the courses they've imported from old systems are a bit shit compared to the new courses and don't work so well with the new gameplay.

Summary

As always the real strength of Mario Kart lies in multi-player. They've possibly taken the concept that "anyone can play against anyone" a bit too far, but a better racer will win more often than a novice it just evens the odds a bit. And it's still just as fun as Mario Kart ever was with just about enough fresh ideas to make it interesting even for people who've played the previous games in the series to death.

Score

8/10 Read the Eurogamer scoring policy