Despite over 95% of the gaming population going crazy over Grand Theft Auto IV I have been obsessing over Mario Kart. Since the first installment on the SNES, every Nintendo system to date has had a release of Mario Kart on it including four on the consoles, two portable games, and even two arcade games and now with this eighth installment they have yet to disappoint.
This Mario Kart has taken a different route then its predecessors, instead of making new race tracks for you to compete on they decided to revamp some of the favorite old ones, which wasn't a bad idea on their part. Some of the maps got such a huge revamp they definitely deserve the title of "Expert". One of my favorite maps on Mario Kart was Rainbow Road and in this installment I have learned to hate it. The map is ridiculously harder than any track ever on a Mario Kart game. But I think that is what adds to the appeal of this game is that they have decided to up the difficulty level a bit. I used to feel that the A.I. in the games were a little to easy to beat which was such a drag because I would play Mario Kart for maybe an hour by myself because their was no real competition, but I have had long gaming sessions on Mario Kart now because I find the A.I. to be worthy of racing and defeating. I actually get upset when an A.I. beats me...especially Wario..he is a sneaky man. In this version you have eight different cups: Mushroom, Shell, Flower, Banana, Star, Crown, Leaf and Lightning. Each of these cups containing a four tracks from one of the different versions of Mario Kart and some of them definitely are a pain in the butt. As far as the track choices and A.I. I give Nintendo props for creating a really unique Mario Kart.
Now many of the complaints that I have heard about in regards to Mario Kart is the addition of bikes. I personally like the fact that they added a little more flavor to the mix but what I don't like is that the bikes are crazy fast. When its just the 100cc with only bikes its not that bad because everyone is on the same playing field but when you start playing 150cc where its mixed that is where it truly becomes aggravating because even though its seems like you have a decent lead when your driving the kart out of no where one of the A.I's on the bike can come speeding up behind you and blast past you. One thing I did like is that whenever you go through all the vehicles they give you a description on the details of the vehicle including its speed, weight, acceleration, handling, drift, off-road, and mini-turbo, all of this is a great help when you race online but I will get more into that a little bit later. As for the addition of bikes into the mix I am a little skeptical if they took into account how powerful the bikes are compared to the karts but I do still like the addition of them in the game.
The Wii Wheel. What can I say? Other than its amazing! Nintendo has definitely breached a whole new area of fun in gaming with the motion sensor controls that their games have. When I play with the Wii Wheel I feel like I am controlling my vehicle easier than I would on a regular controller simply because it reacts with how I react due to the motion sensor. To some of the Mario Kart veterans it does feel weird, watching my sister try to play with the Wheel was hilarious, but I personally appreciate Nintendo including the Wheel packaged in with Mario Kart because my gaming experience has been a whole lot of fun because of it.
So all in all I say for those of you that haven't bought this game yet you need to go to your local retailer right now and purchase it.
