Mario Kart Wii


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I'm loving and hating Mario Kart Wii....

On one side ... It's Mario kart! It's a great racer, great arcader and lot's of fun.

But I prefer the SNES/N64 version to be totally honest. I mean the Wii version is great .. looks sharp, great audio etc .. fun extra's.

But it's the little things that spoil the fun... for example:

In the older version, only humans could use catch-up items (lighning, blue-shield, prolonged super etc) (very often). It could be the CPU used them once .. but it was rare. In Mario Kart Wii, the CPU players use them all the time. When driving first you will get hammered by endless lightning, squids, blue-shield, raging bulllets and supers. It just not fun anymore.

You can't drive a single lap first without getting shot like a million times. Just isn''t cool.

Multiplayer is OK .. it works better then SSBB online and the overal expierence is great. You can take one offline buddy with you online which is great.

When playing with humans online, the endless lameness of endless blue-shields etc is a bit less but I think that's mostly because people aren't using items properly or lose them before using them.

Also when playing (online or offline) you can't play Grand Pix? .. I mean wtf? .. It needs you to pick out one race at a time. It does however keep track of 4 races as sees that as your own GP and giving a throphy to however got the most points the last 4 races. It does require you to pick a new race in the map menu after every race. You can't make a "playlist" and then go race them all at once. Which sucks IMHO.

Maybe I shouldn't whine so much .. but it's lost a bit of that magical Nintendo touch

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huge improvement over double dash. The only thing I'm not a fan of is still the lame online experience, at least compared to xbox live (but this is just a general nintendo issue)

I still rank Mario kart 64 as my fav, but this one is pretty good ... courses are awesome (love the inclusion of some older classics)

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Was playing it at my friends just now - four player multiplayer. I dunno.. it just doesn't get me that excited any more. Though I must admit I was really bouncing around because of the nostalgia invoked when I played Battle Mode and found the SNES Battle Circuit 4 track in there. It had the exact same music too... ahh, the memories :)

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Online is great except for the small compromise of the Grand Prix type racing. Trying to get 12 people will just take too long to setup and people dropping out really annoyed me on DS. The new style though where you join a "server" type game where you race or battle depending on what type you chose, with upto 12 people who are in that "server" is pretty cool. theres little time in waiting to join a game, on DS you just seem to wait FOREVER just to get FOUR people. Overall i am very happy with online except for the guests doesn't get ranked, :(

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In the older version, only humans could use catch-up items (lighning, blue-shield, prolonged super etc) (very often). It could be the CPU used them once .. but it was rare. In Mario Kart Wii, the CPU players use them all the time. When driving first you will get hammered by endless lightning, squids, blue-shield, raging bulllets and supers. It just not fun anymore. You can't drive a single lap first without getting shot like a million times. Just isn''t cool.

I agree, it is infuriating when a race's outcome depends on chance rather than skill. *shakes fist at blue shell, POW and lightning combos*

Also when playing (online or offline) you can't play Grand Pix? .. I mean wtf? .. It needs you to pick out one race at a time. It does however keep track of 4 races as sees that as your own GP and giving a throphy to however got the most points the last 4 races. It does require you to pick a new race in the map menu after every race. You can't make a "playlist" and then go race them all at once. Which sucks IMHO.

I think there's an option to make the tracks play in order, the default is to pick them manually though.

On the subject of the options screen - you can turn off the items too, which rules.

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