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Mario Kart Wii

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Rating: E

Score: 9.5

Fifteen years ago, the game Super Mario Kart came out on Super Nintendo. Its purpose was to be a fun single-player experience and it provided unbeatable multi-player experience. Today, the series continues for the Wii, still serving the same purpose and succeeding.

The Mario Kart series is all about having Nintendo characters racing in go-karts, wielding different items to help get the gold. Upon opening this game, you'll find the box contains the game and a "Wii Wheel." This Wii Wheel is simply a small steering wheel to put your Wii Remote in for racing/driving games, which is better than normally holding it, since it's square. The controls for this type of controller, and any other types of controllers, are perfect. Small turns of the wheel make your character do small turns. Likewise, vicious turns of the wheel make your character do vicious turns.

One of the new features in this game is the new ramp feature. If you flick the Wii Wheel, or press a button on a controller, after flying off a ramp, you'll do a fancy trick. Upon landing, you'll get a nice speed boost too. Because of this new feature, you'll see ramps all over the sixteen new tracks, and not so much the 16 renewed tracks.

Speaking of the tracks, the new ones look fairly nice, and almost always have nice out-of-the-way shortcuts. Renewed tracks are basically tracks from older Mario Kart games, but with better visual and audio effects, and anywhere there might have been a good ramp, which were useless in previous games, there are now ramps that characters can use for tricks.

Some new, cool characters include your Mii and Koopa Troopa, while unwanted characters include Baby Daisy and Birdo. Every character starts off with three karts and three bikes, and you can unlock more. Karts are similar to previous games, basic and balanced, depending on the character. Bikes are better at doing tricks, have better handling, and can do wheelies on straight-aways to gain speed, but are normally fairly slow.

Battle Mode is next to identical to previous titles. It's fun, easy, and best of all, with the new online play; it can be enjoyed with people around the world real-time!

Balloon Battle is the same, except for the fact that after all balloons are popped, you get more balloons. In Balloon Battle, you and your opponents will drive around any of the five new tracks or five renewed tracks from other Mario Kart titles, trying to pop your opponents' balloons using items. Everyone starts with three balloons.

Coin Runner has everyone running around for coins. These coins can be beat right out of your opponents! Like I said before, this game takes full advantage of online. Race, Battle, and then see how you rank against people around the world afterwards.

Mario Kart is one of the best racing series ever. The series always shines in multi-player experience and now, even if you have no friend in the same room, you can still race and battle them, or anyone else, anytime! It's not a huge leap, but it's definitely worth owning for any Nintendo, racing, or simply multi-player fans.

Matthew Forbes is a 14-year-old writer and gamer from Miramichi.