Wi-Philes

Before I even start, I'm going to say this. I am not about to be nice to Mario Kart Wii. If you love said game and you don't want to hear someone trash it a bit, you might want to hit the back button in you're browser. If you haven't played the game and want your feelings to remain neutral until you try it out for yourself, you also want to hit the back button in your browser. Consider yourself warned.

Luckily for me, I didn't buy Mario Kart Wii. Prior to the game's recent release, I wasn't exactly foaming at the mouth in anticipation like I usually am with the the coming of a new Kart game. The screenshots that have been periodically released left me feeling fairly apathetic to the whole thing. The environments looked alright, the character models looked atrocious, and the game itself looked like it was going to play like, well, Mario Kart. Which isn't a bad thing, but quite frankly when I'm in the mood for Mario Kart I still reach for the DS version, so I haven't exactly been desperate to fill my Karting void with a new game. When asked about how I felt about Mario Kart Wii before it's release, the best you'd get out of me would be a vaguely enthusiastic "Yeah, I'll give it a try when it comes out."

So me and some friends got together last night to give it some play. After maybe an hour or so, I had had my fill. It's very true that I didn't play through the whole thing, so perhaps if I played more of the game my opinions on the game would change a bit, but like so many one night stands, the pleasure felt that eve simply wasn't enough to keep me coming back for more.

There were a few tricks the game turned that got me a bit excited. I like the idea of twelve racers, the return of some old tracks, complete with original music, that were missing from the DS version of the game is nice, the motorcycles are cute additions, the wheel works surprisingly okay, and best of all, the fixing of the irritating snaking problem is a more than welcome adjustment. Too much of the rest of the game, however, failed to keep me from getting flaccid. Uh, you know, figuratively.

Anyways, here is a first person account of my thought process as I was playing Mario Kart Wii last night.

(Turn game on) The presentation of this game is ugly. It's boring and feels extremely rushed. This isn't a big deal as it has no direct impact on the gameplay itself, but it isn't a good sign. Fine, whatever. Let's try some multiplayer. What? You can't do two player GP? Ugh. That sucks. Whatever. Let's just do some VS. then. Man, these tracks are really wide and feel kind of empty. Oh, that's probably to adjust for the four additional racers playing. That's annoying. I would have preferred sticking to eight racers if twelve racers means making every track feel like I'm wearing clogs that are ten times to big. God these character models are ugly. They can't be much better looking than they were on Double Dash, if at all. A few of these levels are kind of novel, though, so that's a good thing. This is getting boring. Why is this getting boring? I love Mario Kart. I was just playing the DS version a few weeks ago and enjoying it. Let's try some Battle Mode. What? You have to pick one of two teams? Where's the reasoning there? If you're playing three players there's seriously no way to do every man for himself? It always has to be two against one? This is terrible. Lucky for me there's enough of us to have an even amount on each team. Oh, awesome. Some classic arenas. Let's play one of those. Sweet Jesus why is this arena so big? I feel like I'm on a massive deserted island. I can't even find anyone to shoot. Wait, what is that timer on the top of the screen for? Balloon matches are TIMED now? Why? I just got my three balloons shot off. I guess I lose. Wait, I'm respawning? What? Wait, balloon matches are point matches now? And you can't change that? Why even have three balloons if you're just going to come back when they're all gone anyways? I don't understand this game. I'm bored. Does anyone else want to play?

At this point I give up the controls and watch everyone else play for a while. I don't feel like I'm missing out on much of anything. I watch them try some online matches and I do kind of like how that seems to work, in that you can see where everyone is from and their Miis are all next to their names. Although I guess now that I think about it that's only really impressive when compared to the rest of Nintendo's online "lineup."

I can't pretend like I was devastatingly disappointed with Mario Kart Wii. I went in with low expectations, ones that should have been easy to surpass, and stopped playing when the game landed a little under the low bar I had set for it. Maybe some of the issues I have with it would be ironed out if I gave it more of a chance, but I don't see myself spending fifty bucks any time soon to take that risk.

Sorry, Mario Kart Wii. You wont be getting booty calls from me anytime soon.