PointsMario Kart Wii - Nintendo Wii (EU release April 2008)
Mario Kart Wii is generally a very good game...when you first have it.
The game includes some new tracks, including a superb new Rainbow Road. The game appears very good at first sight.
The characters, karts and circuits and all very well drawn, and the tracks are often imaginative. Also, Mario Kart Wii sees the return of some of the greatest tracks from the past mario kart games. These tracks are exactly recreated, with the slightest touch here and there, and the graphics are touched up into a 3D wonder.
The gameplay modes are very enjoyable. If you get bored with racing normally, you can do a team race, with your team trying to get the most overall points in a race. Also, battle are quite fun, particularly trying to nick other peoples' baloons! Also, the coin runners is another points accumalator based team gasme. These modes can be brought online.
The gameplay if very enjoyable at first, as I said. You feel excited racing round the new tracks, shooting your shells at people. You race through the cups, and rip your hair out if you get beaten. One of the other fantastic things is the online play. You can connect to twelve, yes: twelve (!), people online. Also, you can do two player splitscreen online, where you have two people on your console, both playing online at the same time. The voting is quite good, with the option of choosing which track you would like to race on. The Wii randomly selects someone, and their chosen tracked is used for the next race.
Another good point about the online, is the Live Mario Kart, where, in a queue for a race, you can watch others compete in a race. You can change who you would like to look at, and analyse other people's driving styles, and techniques, as well as peeking at people using he shortcuts!
However, after a while, the game becomes boring, as you race round and round (etc.) the same tracks, battle or race. When you have played the game lots, it has no real replay value.
However, all is not lost. If your family enjoys racing on Mario Kart Wii, then you can still enjoy a good-old family race, even though the game has lost it's single player, and online single player, value.
Mario Kart Wii is a very good game, especially for it's graphics and game modes. The offline multiplayer never loses it's value, but the single player, and single player online, modes lose their interest.
