Early Mario Kart Wii Impressions

Hi there.

I've had only a day or so with Mario Kart Wii as I write this (I finally caved and bought it from a seller off Amazon since I couldn't find a single copy in the Austin, TX area), but I already know for absolute fact that it's better than its Gamecube counterpart.

OK, that's not saying much. At all. I'm still not convinced, especially after extensive time with Kart Wii's older DS cousin and spending 1000 Wii Points on Mario Kart 64, that the latter isn't the best incarnation of the series. Maybe it's nostalgia, sure, but maybe it's simple design and an overall feeling that cart racing in the Mario universe is somewhat serious business.

Yeah, serious business in the Mario world. I know. Bear with me.

The new stage designs from Kart Wii are impressive and a hell of a lot of fun compared to the Gamecube and SNES versions, but they feature a lot of kitsch (half pipes and such). Maybe it's the Gran Turismo fan in me, but I get a rush when I make the final turn of 64's Mario Circuit playing online on Kart Wii with two or three of us jockeying for placement in the top three. Same goes for the rest of the N64 courses available on DS and Wii. They lend themselves better to competitive racing because less is left to chance. Rainbow Road on Wii seems almost broken to me. I recall fondly the Rainbow Road from N64 -- an epic track that dared you to take the inside on a turn and took upward of seven minutes or something to finish three laps. The newest Rainbow Road is short (about 4 minutes for three laps) and features many of the kitsch elements of which I wrote earlier. I don't know. I might be a jaded gamer of old who prefers a more "hardcore" experience. It's silly to talk about a cart racing game in this way, I agree. It's very possible I'm just itching for GT5's online experience.

I'll have to wait a while for that.

Anyway, the short of it is positive, really. I'm enjoying Mario Kart Wii quite a bit. It's a ton of fun to play online or with a friend. My wife, Lauren, seems to enjoy it as well despite being a massive fan of the more conservative Mario Kart 64. She's been using the Wii Wheel. She's unimpressed. I knew from my brief experience playing it at Best Buy that I would prefer something other than the Wii Wheel. I've been using the Wiimote/Nunchuk combination, but I'm leaning toward a switch to the classic controller. I wish to God they would release a Wiimote that just looks exactly like an N64 controller.

This is all making me feel old.

I will present one more gripe about the series, though. When did it become acceptable to make "baby" versions of every single conceivable Mario character? I mean Baby Mario was an actual character in Yoshi's Island, I know. But what the fuck is the deal with Baby Peach? I mean, really?

Really?

Don't even ask me about Baby Daisy or I'll shit a toaster.

Do we really need "baby" versions of our beloved adult characters instead of classics like Shy Guy, the Koopa Kids, the Hammer Bros, or even Wart from Mario 2? I gather we don't.

Make that two gripes:

Am I missing something or do the characters no longer have individual statistics? I looks to me like the carts and bikes have stats but the characters don't. That seems to take some character out of...the characters. I guess it makes the choice of cart or bike a more strategic one, but it still seems a bit odd after all this time to render the characters basically even. Not a huge issue by any means, but I do think it's worth mentioning.

I am quite happy with my Kart Wii experience thus far. Undeniably a vast improvement over the last console offering.



"Sky Is Open"
The Long Winters