The Bullet Bill returns, allowing people to speed through half of the ranks without ever having to touch the controller.

Mario Kart DS added items expressly engineered to mess with pack leaders, and Mario Kart Wii continues the tradition.

The use of items has always been controversial in Mario Kart, even more so than in other car combat games, but this installment really takes the cake in terms of ridiculousness. Mind you, we’re nowhere near done with the list of black marks on this title. What could possibly have prompted this? Even Brawl, with all of its concessions towards people who didn’t eat, sleep and breathe the game, allowed people to play the way they wanted to, and in ways that made sense. In short, half of the appeal of Mario Kart has been wiped off of the face of the earth. In addition, the matches are now timed, even in the “three hits and you’re gone” balloon matches, erasing the point of said matches entirely. Forget about grudge matches with your buddies, or tournaments, or anything like that there’s too much riffraff and noise in the way now. Mario Kart Wii’s Battle Mode is now entirely team-based, with computer players mandatorily filling in for up to eleven empty spots, no matter what. There’s no more free-for-all to see who’s the better battler, or even just who’s the last (wo)man standing. This is neither hyperbole nor paranoia there is just absolutely no reason to play it anymore. It’s just not the same.īattle Mode, meanwhile, has been outright ruined.

Remember 2-Player Grand Prix? No longer present unless you end up jury-rigging its circumstances by fiddling with a bunch of sub-settings in the multiplayer mode menu. Let’s go down the list:Ĭlassic game modes have been reshuffled or changed entirely. Which action you take depends largely on how much of a personal investment you have in Mario Kart as a series, and right off the bat, this game seems dead-set on giving the raspberry to anyone who’s ever played a past Mario Kart title, near to the point of spite. It is a fickle mistress, who giveth and who taketh away at times you will loathe its coders, and at others, you will praise the title as a gift from the heavens. Seriously, I’ve scrapped and restarted this piece no less than three times. Mario Kart Wii is quite possibly the strangest beast I’ve ever had to review in my five years of evaluating video games.

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