A week or two late but hey-ho, that’s a favourite show’s 60th anniversary for you, it’s time for the next and final older Mario Kart review to coincide with a MK8 Booster Pass DLC release! Mario Kart Wii might be the Mario Kart I’ve played the most despite it being released while I was in my mid-20s and that’s because two different generations of nephews would come round and play on this with me for hours on end, one pair going for the all courses cup every time. So while I played this by myself or with friends less than the previous entries I may well have racked up more time in this one total! So let’s take a look and try our best to ignore the motion controls…
Background:
A mid-air trick while bouncing off a giant mushroom with a banana peel hanging behind him… That’s Mario Kart!
Mario Kart Wii was released for the, um, Wii in April 2008 worldwide (though the exact day of the month varied from the 10th in Japan, 11th in Europe and 27th in America, another rare case of us Brits getting a big game before the US!)
Alongside the returning Mario, Luigi, Baby Mario, Baby Luigi, Peach, Daisy, Toad, Toadette, Bowser, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, Koopa Troopa, Wario, Waluigi, Birdo, Diddy Kong, Bowser Jr., Dry Bones, and King Boo are Rosalina, baby versions of Peach and Daisy, Funky Kong (for some reason!), Dry Bowser for that easy palette swap and a male and female Mii driver, with you selected Mii’s head plopped on top. So that’s a total of 26 drivers and due to the new system of three size classes who are free to pick between a bunch of different vehicles it makes for some good variety.
With the addition of four retro cups alongside the four default cups you have a grand total of 32 courses to play on, so it’s safe to say my little bit describing the different course types you run into is a bit redundant now (and even more so in 8/8 Deluxe!) I will give a special shout-out to Coconut Mall for doing something very different; Moo Moo Meadows, Maple Treeway and Mushroom Gorge for being fun and good eye-candy (for the time…) and Wario’s Gold Mine and Grumble Volcano for being both fun and challenging, at least until you’ve played them a billion times, anyway…
Gameplay:
Waluigi showing off his fine arse …. while on a motorbike.
Mario Kart Wii is just like the others in set up: it’s a racing game with weapons where the goal is to come first, but the unique spin Wii puts on the formula is two different vehicles and a great emphasis on doing stunts. When you pick your racer you can then pick what vehicle you want based on their size and there are both karts and bikes, with the latter being able to wheelie to get a speed boost at the expense of generally being harder to steer. As mentioned in the opening paragraph the game is focused on motion controls and came bundled with a “Wii Wheel”, which was a plastic wheel with a space to pop your Wii-mote in so you can control your kart with a wireless wheel in your hand. It’s a fun idea, and one of my nephews was able to get used to it (due to me only having two traditional controllers) but I … couldn’t. Or maybe wouldn’t try really, I was never one for the Wii-mote, with one or two exceptions. Either way the other gimmick as I said it stunts, where you can do a little pose mid-air to get a speed boost when you land back on the ground, leading to a lot of tracks having specific boost pad/ramps just for it.
As for weapons the set up is kind of set in stone now, with your mushrooms for speed boosts, your different colours shells, lightning bolts and all that goodness (or badness, if you’re on the other end) Wii did introduce the Mega Mushroom from New SMB allowing you to roll over and squish your enemies, and the POW block to cause everyone to spin out, but neither of those are particularly memorable (though timing a jump just right to avoid a POW was always satisfying!) It also has to be mentioned that the game does suffer quite badly from rubber-banding, in other words when you’re significantly ahead the CPU will magically never be too far away from you that they can’t catch up. This can be annoying, but over the years I’ve learned to just deal with it. Also there are three difficulty levels that denote not just CPU ability but also how fast you can go: 50cc, 100cc and 150cc, plus a mirror mode which is 150cc but the courses are backwards.
A rather dull shot of the fun Coconut Mall. Plus one of the single lightning clouds I forgot to mention in the new items bit!
As for modes, again it’s the same old tried and true formula. You have Grand Prix, where you face either a fellow human and the CPU or just the CPU in a cup of four tracks; Versus mode, which is the same as Grand Prix except you get to change how many tracks you play and other things (which is how me and my nephews often did an “all tracks cup”); Time Trials is just as it sounds, you race around a specific track trying to get the best time; and Battle Mode, which has undergone something of a change as its now two teams against each other only, but otherwise its three balloons on each kart, so three hits and your out, or another mode where people drop coins when they get hit and it’s the team with the most coins that win. It also has to be mentioned that Versus and Battle modes are, or were I should say, available to play with up to 12 other people online and it thankfully didn’t have the “snaking” problem the DS one did… though I still avoided it like the plague anyway but I’ve never been one for online…
So overall it’s what I’d call “safe” Mario Kart, it has pretty much everything you expect from a game in the series and does it really well, but nothing really stands out in terms of unusual gimmicks or personal nostalgia, so it sort of falls in the middle.
Graphics and Sound:
Everyone loves Peach’s garden … that’s not a rude thing either. Don’t think it is! Stop!!
The graphics are fine. The Wii wasn’t exactly a powerhouse when it released so in 2023 things do look undetailed and simplified but they still get the job done, and it’s still pretty smooth to play too, which for a racer is the main thing.
Soundtrack is great, as it always is for pretty much anything Mario related.
Thoughts Then:
Love how the SNES and Super Circuit tracks still retain the thin blocky walls and general 2D-ness of the originals.
I remember popping down to GAME to pick up a copy a few days after it released with some money I’d come into (can’t remember how though given it was only April and I’m pretty sure I was in between jobs…? Erm, anyway…) and I can only describe it as “simple fun”. Nothing blew me away but I really enjoyed most of the new tracks, and of course the nostalgia hit of seeing the older tracks upgraded and on the big screen was a real treat. Me and my friends played it solidly for a few months then moved on apart from the odd go here and there, but as mentioned that was followed by literal years of popping it on for various nephews when they came round, especially my eldest two. To be fair to it I never felt bored or annoyed I had to play it again, so it obviously retained that Mario Kart local multiplayer fun that the series always has.
Thoughts Now:
The Wii Rainbow Road… is completely forgettable. Ah well, great soundtrack at least!
Playing it now in 2023 is very odd because it’s very close to Mario Kart 8, which I’ve been playing on and off for many years now due to its Wii U origins, but it’s just that little bit different, just that little bit worse technically and visually. That means it’s still fun to play but it’s not different enough for me not to just put on MK8 instead, especially since the Booster Pass mean the game now has pretty much the entire Wii era original tracks in all the countless retro cups now!
Hogan Reviews 