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Wii | Driving | Mario Kart Wii

Boxart for Mario Kart Wii
Mario Kart Wii 128 screen shots
  • GRAPHICS: 4.00
  • SOUND: 3.75
  • CONTROL: 4.50
  • FUN FACTOR 4.75
  • AVG USER SCORE 4.9
  • AVG CRITIC SCORE 4.8
Winner of the GamePro Editor's Choice Award

Preview: Mario Kart Wii (Page 2 of 3)

Preview by Chris Morell | 02/19/2008 | 13:47:04 PM PST

Everyone will like that you can race with your Mii character in the game, making Mario Kart's first online experience a personal one. You'll progress through different licenses in the game, and race a variety of karts, and bikes, which are new to the series. Bikes have their own traits, basically being nimble and fast (you can perform wheelies, too), but are light and susceptible to some kart bumping. Of course, there are many different models of kart and bikes, which come in all sorts of shapes and sizes.

Single-Player Racing

Mario Kart's single-player mode has four options.

Split-screen racing returns! Plus, two people can go online on one Wii console!

Split-screen racing returns! Plus, two people can go online on one Wii console!

With single-player races, you get a bunch of customizable options, including the ability to choose the type of vehicle for each race, stage options, the kind of items you want to appear, and how many wins to play up to. I like all these options because it gives you exactly what you want in your races. I've always hated that a last-place racer can steal a race by lucking out with a Lightning Bolt last minute, so this is where you can make sure that those kinds of shenanigans don't happen.

Hands-On Racing

There are 12 playable characters in Mario Kart Wii: 4 light, 4 medium, and 4 heavy. These 12 characters are: Baby Mario, Baby Peach, Toad, Koopa Troopa, Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Princess Peach, Wario, Waluigi, Donkey Kong and Bowser. Each one has character-specific vehicles to ride. We saw a few, such as the Mach Bike, Bowser Bike, Sugar Scoot, Flamerunner, and Off-Roader, but there were tons more. We fired up the Mach Bike for a race--there is a choice between automatic and manual shifting--and got in on the action for the first time using the wheel.

With the wheel, it took a little getting used to, but a few minutes of practice helped out. As with any steering-wheel peripheral, there's always the tendency to overcorrect. I found it much more difficult to drift with precision using the wheel, something that is probably easier done with a standard control scheme. But less-hardcore Wii owners will probably like the wheel simply because there's hardly anything to learn.


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