Mario Kart Wii

Mario Kart Wii
File:MKWiiBoxart.jpg North American box art
Developer(s)	Nintendo EAD
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Designer(s)	Shigeru Miyamoto (general producer)
Series	Mario Kart
Platform(s)	Wii
Genre(s)	Kart racing
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer, online multiplayer

Template:Nihongo title is a kart racing video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii console. It is the sixth installment in the series (not including the two arcade games) and the second to use Nintendo's free online service, Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. The game was released on April 10, 2008 in Japan and April 11, 2008 in Europe, and will be released on April 24, 2008 in Australia and April 27, 2008 in North America. Every copy of the game is packaged with the Wii Wheel accessory, which is designed to house the Wii Remote to allow more intuitive and conventional steering.

Mario Kart Wii is the successor to Mario Kart DS for the Nintendo DS. Changes from the predecessor includes motorbikes and support for up to twelve racers. Like other games in the Mario Kart series, Mario Kart Wii involves various characters from various Mario games racing each other on tracks themed from locations in the Mario series. Less realistic physics, and the use of various weapons and or items to achieve victory differentiates kart racing games like Mario Kart Wii from more realistic racing games.

Gameplay

In Mario Kart Wii, the player(s) can choose any one of up to 25 unique characters to operate their kart, which are separated into various classes of weight. The weight of a character affects his or her performance on the track as well as what types of karts or motorbikes are compatible with that character. Each character has unique abilities, making them more suited to certain playing styles, and less suited to others. The players then race across various tracks. Each track has a unique shape, as well as different obstacles and hazards to avoid. The game includes a total of 32 different tracks, half of which are remakes of tracks from previous Mario Kart games, and up to 12 characters can participate in a race.

Players can obtain items by driving through question mark blocks (Item Boxes) which can be used for either defense, offense or for powering up the engine for a short amount of time (boost). While most items have appeared in previous iterations of the Mario Kart series, new ones have been introduced, such as the Mega Mushroom, which allows the character to grow to an enormous size and flatten opposing characters, and the Thunder Cloud, which causes lightning to strike and shrink you after a while unless you pass it on to someone else by bumping into them. Also featured in Mario Kart Wii is the ability to draft behind an opponent's kart. If the player is close enough, light blue streaks will start flying by their kart, and their speed will begin to increase. If the player maintains this position long enough, they will receive a noticeable speed boost, allowing them to easily overtake and pass the opponent.

The primary control scheme is the Wii Wheel, which houses the Wii Remote. In addition to the Wii Wheel, four other controller schemes are present: the Wii Remote alone (tilted on its side), the Remote with the Nunchuk attachment, the Nintendo GameCube controller, or the Wii Classic Controller. The ability to "snake" in previous Mario Kart games, which creates speed boosts by repeatedly drifting, has been abandoned in favor of a new speed boost system based on how long the player actually drifts and the angle at which they drift.

Game modes

There are four modes of play: Grand Prix, Time Trial, Versus, and Battle. In Grand Prix-mode, the player races in a series of "Grand Prix" competitions (Cups) against computer-controlled competitors. Each Cup consists of four three-lap races. Each Cup may be approached at a 50 cc, 100 cc, or 150 cc, which determines the speed of the race. At the end of the cup, the player is awarded a trophy based on his or her finishing position (Bronze, Silver, or Gold) and a rating based upon how well he or she raced (E, D, C, B, A, One-Star, Two-Stars, Three-Stars, in ascending order) based upon their finishing positions and their lap times in each race. Mirror Mode can also be unlocked which is all eight cups in a mirrored manner on the 150cc engine size. In Time Trial Mode, players try to finish a course in as short a time as possible. Like in previous games, the fastest time will be saved as a ghost (a carbon copy of the player's performance which can be raced against). Versus entails two to four players racing head-to-head in a single all-human race, on any course. This mode is identical to Grand Prix, and can be played either with or without AI players.

The game also features two battle modes, Balloon Battle and Coin Runner. The players are split into two teams, and start on one of the ten battle courses (five retro and five new). In Balloon Battle, each player has three balloons attached to their kart. Every time a player is hit by an opposing player, a balloon is lost, and the running score for each team is altered accordingly. If a player loses all three balloons, they are given three new balloons and are restarted on the course. When the time limit is reached, the team which popped the most balloons wins. In Coin Runner, coins are scattered over the battle course. If a player drives over a coin he or she will pick it up, but being hit by an opposing player will cause him or her to lose coins. The winning team is the team that is holding the most coins when the time limit is reached. Both of these modes support one to twelve players; any slots unfilled by players may be filled by AI players, however this option can be disabled. Both battle modes are automatically set to 3 minute's and the time can't be changed.

Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection

Mario Kart Wii allows players to play against other real players through Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. This features online racing and battle modes, both of which are capable of up to twelve simultaneous competitors. There are three options, worldwide, continental and friends. The first two options matches the player against those of a similar rank to him/her either around the world or on the continent, and the third option lets the player race against listed friends. The maps are decided by a voting system where the map is randomly selected from the maps voted for by the players, where each vote increases the probability of the map being chosen. When playing online for the first time players are given a skill rating of '5000' and based on wins and losses, this increases or decreases to rank the player's skill level. It should be noted that when two local players play online, the graphics and frame rate are lowered. The game features online text chat between players where users are able to select from a set of predetermined phrases, though only when playing with friends..

The game has the option of installing the Mario Kart Channel to the Wii Menu, which presents the current local and international rankings, as well as the option of sending or downloading saved time-trial ghost data. The Kart Channel also serves up racing challenges, competitions, from Nintendo itself. The channel, which can be run independently of the disc-version of the game, also enables a user to see if any members in his Friend List are currently online, so as to join and participate in a race with them. In addition to racing, players can watch other races in progress using an Online Spectator option.

The Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection also allows semi professional players more freedom to play competetively, and join clans such as the Shadow Stars.

Karts

File:Mariokartwii sslg3.jpg

Mario driving a kart in one of the first pictures released of the game.

A feature returning from Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and Mario Kart DS is the use of multiple karts for each character. Each playable character starts out with a choice of three karts and three motorcycles, and as a player progresses through the game, he or she can unlock another three special karts and motorcycles for each character, also with slightly different stats, like a muscle car-like hot rod for Wario, Waluigi, Donkey Kong, and Bowser or a baby stroller/pushchair for Baby Mario, Baby Luigi, Baby Peach, Koopa Troopa, and Toad. No character has specific vehicles they alone can use.

Each vehicle has seven different parameters which decides its characteristics: speed, weight, acceleration, handling, drift, off-road and mini-turbo. While motorcycles can perform wheelies for a speed boost, they have a limited turning ability for the duration of a wheelie. Karts can throw motorcycles off-road easily, and they can only get a minor speed boost from drifting, giving both karts and motorcycles their own advantages and disadvantages. Some characters (like Peach, Daisy, and Rosalina) change their look when using motorcycles. The 50cc mode features karts, the 100cc mode features motorcycles and the 150cc mode has a mix of both. However, all modes can eventually be unlocked to be used with both cars and bikes.

Tracks

Mario Kart Wii has a total of 32 tracks: 16 new, while the other 16 are remakes of tracks from previous Mario Kart games. Eight new tracks and eight old tracks are available at the start of the game, and the others need to be unlocked. The tracks are split into eight cups, four containing the new tracks and four containing the remakes. In addition, there are also ten battle courses, five new and five remakes of battle courses from previous games. The tracks are generally wider in Mario Kart Wii than other games in the Mario Kart series, as they are designed to have twelve racers on them instead of eight.

Playable characters

See also: Mario Kart § Playable_characters

Mario Kart Wii features 24 (25 counting the Mii) selectable characters, more than any of its predecessors. The cast of characters includes 20 returning characters from Mario Kart and five newcomers. This installment's newcomers are Baby Peach, Funky Kong, Miis (which can also be seen as background elements such as spectators or a sphinx), Rosalina, and making her first ever appearance in the Mario series, Baby Daisy. There are eight characters of each weight class; eight for light, eight for middle and eight for heavy. Each kart or bike has unique abilities, making them more suited to certain playing styles, and less suited to others.

Development and release

At E3 2007 Media and Business Summit, Mario Kart Wii was officially announced along with its online-enabled features. The first footage of the title was shown. During Reggie Fils-Aime's presentation, he unveiled the new entry via a trailer that showed off some gameplay and some other characters. Additional details of the game were released in conjunction with the Nintendo Fall 2007 Conference held on October 2007, where it was revealed that it would include motorcycles and the Wii Wheel. New gameplay footage from the game was also shown.

Hideki Konno, producer of Mario Kart Wii, had wanted to include online features like the ranking system and sharing Ghost Data already for the Mario Kart DS, but hadn't been able in order to get that game completed in time for a 2005 release. Now, for Mario Kart Wii, these features could finally be implemented. Konno had also been proposing ideas involving BMX ever since Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, but the ideas had been rejected. For Mario Kart Wii they were able to put the motorbike in the Wii game though, "making the world of Mario a little more for boys" as Miyamoto put it. During the development of the Wii Wheel, the designers tested roughly 30 different prototypes with different shapes, colors and weights, before deciding on the final Wheel design. The game was even called Mario Kart X internally for a while, before deciding on Mario Kart Wii.

Reception and sales

Reception

Aggregate scores

Aggregator	Score
GameRankings	83% (10 reviews)
Metacritic	84% (10 reviews)

Review scores

Publication	Score
Edge	6 of 10
Eurogamer	8 of 10
Famitsu	37 of 40
IGN	8.5 of 10
Nintendo Power	9 of 10

Mario Kart Wii has been received positively. It was given 94% by the "Official Nintendo Magazine" UK. The magazine and other sources claimed that the new "Wii Wheel" worked very effectively, and loved the different multiplayer modes. NGamer gave the game 88% praising the online features of the game as such, but claimed that the tracks are too big and felt lonely for local multiplayer matches as they are designed to have twelve racers on them, not four, even though in local multiplayer matches there are twelve racers present. A common criticism is the fact that Battle mode can now only be played in teams; no free-for-all option is offered. This removes the 'last man standing' element of previous Mario Kart Battle modes. The mode is also now score-based and played against the clock, resulting in only a small penalty from losing all three balloons. These criticisms are all lodged in the NGamer UK review.

When playing online for the first time players are given a skill rating of '5000' and based on wins and loses, this goes up and down in an attempt to rank the players skill level. This system is questioned by players of the game, as Mario Kart has always been designed in a unique way to ensure that players behind can catch up, by speeding up their karts and giving them better weapons opposed to people ahead who get weaker weapons such as green shells, therefore ensuring people ahead are punished making someone skilled unfairly targeted against people less skilled. Weapons like the spiny shell which specifically target people in first place make it difficult for someone to keep a lead and if fired towards the end of the race, can make a skilled player lose the race and as such, take a heavy penalty in their skill level leading to people questioning if an unbalanced game can have a "skill level".

Sales

Mario Kart Wii had a very successful launch and moved 300,000 copies on the launch day in Japan alone, compared to Mario Kart DS which did 160,000 copies on its first day and Mario Kart: Double Dash!! which did 180,000 on its first day. Only three days later it had sold a total of over half a million copies in Japan. In the United Kingdom, Mario Kart Wii was the best-selling video game in the week ending April 122008, having "the eighth biggest opening sales week in UK software history" and becoming the biggest launch of any Nintendo-published game, according to ChartTrack/ELSPA. Amazingly its first week sales trumped Super Smash Bros brawl. Those of all five other Mario Wii games combined (Mario & Sonic at the Olympics, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Paper Mario, Mario Party 8 and Mario Strikers Charged).

External links

• Official Website
• Mario Kart Wii at MobyGames
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