Mario Kart Wii

Nintendo’s latest and greatest title for the Wii, Mario Kart, was released on April 27. Across the globe, the buzz about how wonderful this game is supposed be gave me the impression that its massive white box would hold untold wonders of gaming joy. With talk of new items, tracks, karts, motorcycles, and even worldwide multi-player online play, I became genuinely “pumped” for the release of this title. Shortly after purchasing the game I began to call all my friends to come over for split-screen battles that would be waged throughout the night. After picking up several boxes of pizza and a nearly endless supply of caffeine-injected products, midnight rolled around and it was time to race.

After popping countless balloons in battle mode, we decided to unlock the rest of the available tracks through the single player mode. By then we had gotten a good feel of the new items and vehicles, and most importantly, the Wii wheel. So we zoomed through all of the Grand prix races and then it was back to battling each other. When we each had found the type of kart or motorcycle we liked best on our favorite Nintendo characters, we battled the night away just like we did when Mario Kart for the SNES was the newest thing.

Like most of the games Nintendo has released for the Wii, Mario Kart is an excellent party game with a oddly high re-playability rate. It is a great game for families and friends to enjoy together. The Wii Wheel works very smoothly, as long as you don’t over-exaggerate your turning. Mario Kart also works with the Wiimote only, or the Wiimote and nunchuk (the classic controller) and the Nintendo Gamecube controller - and all work quite well. It really depends on what’s comfortable for you. This makes it easy to include all your friends without having to break the bank buying lots of new controllers.

Around noon the next day, when everybody had gone home, I decided to check out the online play. After skimming through the farce that is the user-agreement, I pressed ‘Accept’ and quickly jumped into a race with nine other people from across the US. Sad to say, I was the only one from Oklahoma. The big head I had from owning my friends at the kart party quickly deflated, because then I began to learn what the word “owned” really meant. Anyway, online was still a lot of fun. I never had any lagging problems, and I never got disconnected. Everything ran as smoothly as if I was playing with these people in my home, whether I was winning or not.

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been playing this game like it was stuck on self-destruct mode. Mario Kart continues its tradition of being a fun and re-playable party game. Adding the online multi-player exponentially increases the chance of me picking up the Wii Wheel again and again. Nintendo has delivered another impressive title for its revolutionary system.

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