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| Friday, June 26, 2009 12:23 PM |
| (Last updated on Saturday, June 27, 2009 11:01 AM) | | Early Imperssions of Mario Kart Wii |
 by Fëanor |
I've always enjoyed the Mario Kart racing games, and I'd been planning on getting the Wii iteration of the series for a while, but I was waiting for a good deal, a gift certificate, or for somebody to purchase it for me during an appropriate holiday. Well, a good deal fell in my lap the other day ($30 and no shipping for the game bundle including the Wii Wheel!) so I jumped on it. The game arrived in the mail yesterday and I popped it in. It's very similar to previous entries in the series; it includes the single player Grand Prix mode, the multiplayer race mode, and the battle modes where you compete to collect coins or to pop your opponents' balloons before they pop yours. The single player Vs mode seems oddly pointless; it allows you to race against the computers in any single course from the Grand Prix mode. But it doesn't count toward the Grand Prix, and there's already a Practice mode, if I remember correctly. So why ever play Vs? There's also an online multiplayer mode, but I'm not sure if I want to try that or not; those things always freak me out. Play with strangers online?! Good lord!
The race courses are full of rather clever and inventive hazards. I particularly like the mall course where you have to avoid Miis as they try to park their cars in the parking lot. The items you get now seem less random and more tailored toward how you're doing in the race at the moment. I found when I was well ahead, I never got speed boost items, but as soon as I fell behind I started getting tons of them. The game is also now designed so that you will be using items constantly. There are lots of them lying around, but you can only hold onto one at a time (instead of storing a handful that you could switch between, as in a previous game), and there are constantly hazards occurring that could take that one away from you, so it behooves you to use it instantly instead of being miserly with it. This means you're throwing things at people and having things thrown at you constantly. It's a bit insane and distracting, but fun.
At first I thought the Wii Wheel would be a rather pointless accessory, as it's just a plastic shell to hold your Remote and doesn't really add anything in terms of functionality. But it does add something indefinable to the game play. It's just fun to play a driving game with an actual steering wheel in your hand, just as it can be fun to play a shooting game with the Wii Zapper even though that, too, is just a plastic shell (although I found I was better at shooting zombies in House of the Dead 2 & 3 sans Zapper).
So far I've only beaten the Mushroom and Flower Cup races in the 50cc bracket, and I played some multiplayer rounds with poppy, so I've only just scratched the surface of the game. I'm looking forward to digging deeper. |
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