Metareview (US Edition) -- Mario Kart Wii (Wii)

by Alexander Sliwinski on Apr 26th 2008 2:00PM

Yes, Europe. It's shocking, but Mario Kart Wii comes out in North America tomorrow. But, y'all are probably over the latest real kart simulator and have moved on to enjoying Wii Fit. The continent where the history comes from already reviewed Mario Kart Wii many moons ago and rated it a perfectly competent experience. What do the American outlets think? Pretty much the same thing.

IGN (85/100): "Every player is going to have their own love/hate relationship with Mario Kart Wii, but in the end the game does so many things right that it'd be foolish not to give credit where due. Online seriously raises the bar for Nintendo, trumping even Smash in a big, big way. ... It isn't the best Mario Kart in the series, but it's a must-play experience on Wii, and standard-setting offering as far as online, channel support, and connectivity are concerned. Now if you'll excuse us, we've got some online stats to obsess over. "
GameTrailers (84/100): "Generally, video game franchises move forward with each successive release. In this case, Mario Kart for the Wii has taken a few steps forward, and one huge step back. This is the first case of Nintendo not finding a happy medium between accessibility and servicing hardcore players. Yet if you get a group of people together on a Saturday night to play you'll be the only one complaining. While the competitive spirit may be quelled, there's no denying that the foundation here is solid, and the addition of bikes, tricks, and online play are all positives that no one can deny."
GameTap (80/100): "Mario Kart makes a good case for connecting the Wii online, too. Via the Mario Kart Channel, you race other gamers from around the world in an eight-driver contest; you can even see which countries they represent. This is the way to go for multiplayer karting. ... But online or off, you can't go wrong with Mario Kart. If this is your first experience or you've been absent for a while you're in for a treat. If you're a grizzled MK vet at least you can pit your skills with racers around the world--and still have something to grumble about. "

Mario Kart Wii

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Tags: Mario-Kart, mario-kart-wii, mariokartwii, metareview, metareviews, nintendo, Nintendo-EAD, Racing, Wii

Reader Comments (82)

Double Dash is 'hardcore' MK. 64 is for 'casuals.' There, does everyone understand now?

Cesaria

Very true. Those are the exact words.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PEOPLE, JUST DODGE THE BLUE SHELL! IT ISN'T THAT HARD!

85 is about what I expected. It's Mario Kart, it's good, but it's just Mario Kart.

Wow, this game comes out Sunday? Weird how Nintendo is realising games on Sundays now instead of Tuesdays like all other companys do. They did this with Brawl, now MKWii, I would be surprised if Wii Fit comes out on a Sunday too.

Nintendo has always released products on Sunday. Where have you been ?

Well releasing it this sunday is bad enough, but if they had released it tuesday they would have been digging their own grave and burying it. No one's dumb enough to go toe to toe with GTA.

Well, Nintendo clearly has a strategy againts GTA... obviously GTA will sell a lot, thats why Nintendo is going to release Mario Kartjust before GTA.

Now, in the forums of Cheap Ass Gamer, they alway post the retailers ads for the week (they usually upload the newsaper ad), and the Wii is listed in every big retailer.

Target, Circuit City, Best Buy, Toys r Us and Walmart are going to get big Wii shipments tomorrow.

So, this will help the Wii against GTA.

I'll give you your retailer ads, which gta is also all over, and raise you entire buildings in major cities across the world :P

I don't think their trying to compete with GTA, they're just trying to get whatever they can get and move on to the next first party rehash. They'd be happy if MK can sell a million in the US in the first month compared to GTA's 4-6 million in a few days.

Dont want to start a war, jordan. But GTA is a multiplatform title, besides it will be released worlwide.

But one thing is for sure: Mario Kart Wii will outsell the PS3 version of GTA

=p

I'm not so sure anymore. The more I read forums and see more people wanting the ps3 version and hear news like the ps3 version getting more preorders in a whole continent the more I'm starting to believe you'll be wrong. But who knows we'll see in a week (or month whenever gta sales come out)

Please, you underestimate Mario Kart

This game will sit behind Brawl in overall sales, just like DD did to Melee. 1 million in the US is a given

There are a lot of people out there who either don't have a PS3 or a 360, or just don't care about GTA

In a month dude... in the next NPD numbers...

Im not denying that GTA will sell more than Mario Kart in the first week... but in the firt month, Mario Kart will have the lead over the PS3 version.

But not against both versions combined.

No, it won't. I have to agree with Jordan on this one - while there are more Wii owners than PS3 owners, you'd be hardpressed to find a PS3 owner who isn't going to buy Grand Theft Auto 4, whereas it's not as though every single Wii owner is going to go out and buy MKWii.

Grand Theft Auto will outsell Halo 3, which outsold Brawl. And honestly, you think Mario Kart Wii will outsell Brawl? It won't. Which means it will not have sold more units than Halo 3, which means it will not sell as many units as GTA4. Hell, even if the game was exclusive to PS3, I'd still see it outselling, well, every other game ever made.

Stale franchise is stale.

N64 or bust.

Scores seem fitting once again. Its a fun game, but it could've used a delay like Metroid Prime 3's second delay: "to put a layer of polish on"

Plus, said delay would have been welcome. If this game had been, say, an August release, it would've fit in my schedule neatly. As it is, it forces me to delay buying Okami, and shoved FFCC: The Ring of Fates completely off my list

Sure i'll love it nonetheless, though. It's Mario Kart after all, and the effort to build an online infrastructure for this one puts Brawl quite to shame

It's a written policy that Nintendo only reserves delays for Europe and Australia.

It'll always be the SNES one for me. I didn't really like any racing game on the N64, F-Zero or Mario Kart.

Having just seen gameplay of Ratchet and mario galaxy for instance, I wondered why Mario fot 8-10 points more when both are essentially a rehash of excellent platformer. Looking into the reviews here I realised why - for any wii game you have to subtract 10 points for wii hype. In case of Mario galaxy, an excellent 88-90 game (similar to what ratchet or say a good shooter would get) went to an average score close to 100 because of the "wii bonus". In this case, a lousy sub-70 game will get 80+ because of the same reason.

I tried to figure out why this game got 80+ scores, and it seems that the biggest positive reviewers cite is online - which has existed on XBOX and PS3 for years now.
Read further into these 3 reviews and this is what I found:
AI:
"the item balance issues and god awful rubber band AI"
"One cheesy last-ditch effort after another by unfair AI-controlled components. And suddenly you've gone from first place to eighth by no fault of your own. You don't even have a defense against these items"
"skill has been placed on the back burner in favor of luck."
Graphics:
"hard to see any improvement on what was done with the GameCube version and this. Some of the retro tracks have received noticeable improvements, but others look basically the same...Mario Kart for the Wii has a simple, washed-out look."
Soundtrack: nothing that really stands out in Mario Kart. The voice samples for the characters can grate on the nerve"

I mean, what the hell? How much do you think a game with similar AI, graphics and gameplay would get if it was released on any other system? 60? 70?

So, in reality every Wii game is 10 points lower than his current score?

Thats the dumbest comment I will read all this week.

Galaxy, Prime 3, SSBB, and Zelda certainly deserve the scores they got, and I'm going to guess this one does, too. Your argument is flimsy and circumstantial.

I agree with that comment, personally. Ask yourself the following question: If you replaced Mario and company with the gang from Crash Bandicoot, would this game still be getting the scores it has?

If a character's design or familiarity adds to the charm and effect to the game, so what? Seriously, every time I hear this "if you replaced ___ with ___" crap I wanna pimpslap the guy who posted it.

"In case of Mario galaxy, an excellent 88-90 game (similar to what ratchet or say a good shooter would get) went to an average score close to 100 because of the "wii bonus"."

Couldn't have been the fantastic level design, the fresh gravity element, the awesome art style, the incredible soundtrack, etc. that netted it that score.

Seriously, this is one of the dumbest arguments I've read in a while.

In your first sentence colinbell, you claim that Galaxy is a "rehash". From there I stopped reading and voted you down -1.

Fatass: "If a character's design or familiarity adds to the charm and effect to the game, so what?"

Because in many of these character-based spin-offs, the character's design or familiarity doesn't *integrate* into the gameplay.

It's a karting game. If you have to rely on the characters to make the game interesting, then there's something wrong.

I feel the same way about Ratchet and Clank. I loved the older games, but the PS3 game was a major step backwards, with it's finicky controls, broken strafing and collisions, poor Sixaxis implementation, and lack of multiplayer. The new character designs, familiar faces, Lombax intrigue, and slick new animation didn't quite make up for that.

"Online seriously raises the bar for Nintendo, trumping even Smash"

Nothing to say but that I LOL'D.

So the bar went from sitting on the floor to just above the toes?

Online gaming is overrated. Seriously.

my review

95/100

anyone want to race ? http://www.mariokartchallenger.com/index.php?showroom=45

As ever a new version of mariokart causes so much debate! i like thw wii version and think its the closest to the best version which was the snes one. All the others were poor at best, i agree with the blue shell arguement but what about the 'you only get bananas if you are in the lead' problem which has afflicted all the versions since the snes? Wii version is good, much better than n64 and DD, jesus the n64 was disowned by all hardcore snes mariokarters for being totally awfull!
Not sure about the steering wheel though!

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Metareview (US Edition) -- Mario Kart Wii (Wii)

Mario Kart Wii

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