We have had the Nintendo Wii for about a year now and only really used it when people came round, probably because we had only got Wii Sports and hadn't really bothered to get any more games for it. This christmas we decided to get some new games for it and start using it a bit more, so I will be reviewing Wii games for the next couple of weeks!! I will start with my favourite one - Mario Kart Wii

The Wii Wheel

You can buy this game on its own, however I got the boxed version with the wheel included, so you get the official Nintendo wheel and the game with instructions. Everything you need to get started for one player, assuming you already have a controller. We had christmas day at my mum and dad's and took the Wii with us as we knew we were getting Wii games, this game was a big hit and everyone wanted to have a go, unfortunately we only had the one wheel, and, it being christmas day, we could not get another one, so we took it in turns with the wheel and played multi player games with one just using the Wii remote on it own. This is possible and isn't as difficult as I though, however it is much easier to drive with the wheel and we will getting another one soon. You can also operate the game with a Wii remote and Nunchuk but again the wheel is better.

The Wii wheel is basically just a white plastic steering wheel about 6" in diameter, with a slot in the cross section where the Wii remote fits. On the rear is a blue circle with the Wii logo in the middle, there is also a button which you can control with your left hand, when operated with the Wii remote inserted this presses the 'b' button on the remote. When driving in the game you hold the wheel in front of you like a normal steering wheel and use the '2' button on th Wii remote as your accelerator, this is easily operated with your right thumb. The '1' button is the brake and reverse, and the 'b' button operates your special powers when collected. The 'a' button makes you look behind, to check for people coming up behind you.

Using the Wii wheel is very easy and translates to the actual driving on screen really well. I have to admit, before using the wheel, I thought it would be quite difficult to use and get used to, I thought you might have to be very careful to hold the wheel vertical and steer very carefully, however I was wrong, Nintendo have done a great job with the wheel and getting the remote to translate to the video game. All the buttons are easy to operate from where you hold the wheel and steering is very easy and sensitive, it does not matter if you move around a bit during the game as long as you make steering motions to the left or right, your car (or bike) turns that way very well in deed, if you make a sharper turn this also translates to the screen very well.

The Game

The game itself is very similar to the original Mario Kart in a lot of ways, however this new Wii version is far better overall. You have your own licence, for which you can import any of your Wii Miis already on the console, or you can choose from one of the six guest Miis provided. Once you have done this there are different types of games available; 1, 2, 3 and 4 player races, battles and coin collecting team competitions. The multi-player races are by far the best in my opinion, like I mentioned above, you can play with 1, 2, 3 or 4 players in split screen mode, I have only played 2 players so far as we only have two remotes but I think 4 player would be brilliant, as long as there was plenty of room as you tend to move about quite a bit when playing it!!

You can choose your character to sit in the car for you from all the classic Mario characters and you have a choice of different cars and bikes also. The characters are split up in to weight groups which are; light, medium and heavy, the character you choose and which weight group they belong to, makes changes to your accelleration, top speed and off-road ability. For example: Toad belongs to the light weight group and gets 3 stars for acceleration and off-road but only 1 for top speed, where Bowser belongs to the heavy group and only gets 1 star for acceleration and off-road but 3 for top speed, so it is worth seeing which suits you better, Mario himself is medium and gets 2 stars for each of the three catergories. The number of characters and vehicles you can choose from increases as you progress through the game.

There is also an on line function for the game where I assume you can link up to other people with Wii's on line and race against them, however I do not have this function at present so cannot coment on it. You can also do 4 race competitions against the computer or against friends and win cups and points for you licence, the more you have the more your rating goes up and this unlocks more characters and vehicles as mentioned above. There are also a lot of very, very different tracks to race on and I think you unlock more of these as you progress through the game also.

Driving Techniques

There are a few ways to perform better when driving in Mario Kart Wii and I will go through a few that I have discovered and used to go faster and make your opponents go slower.

Rocket Start

When on the starting grid if you just hold down the '2' button during the starting countdown you will get off to a very slow start, in the manual it tells you that if you press and hold 'accelerate' at the right time during the countdown you will set off much faster than normal, unfortunately it does not explain when 'the right time' is. In my experience it is different every race, so it is just pot luck really!!

Drift

Drift basically makes you go round corners faster. Before starting your game you are offered manual or automatic drift, I have only tried it in automatic, and this just makes you go in to a 'drift' when you steer quite sharply, if you select manual, you have to press the drift button while accelerating and steering. Like I say I have not tried the manual drift function yet as I have been getting used to the game, however I will try it as I get better at the game, as I think it will be better having your own control over drift and being able to decide when to start drifting and when to stop. Another reason to try the manual drift is that when you have drifted for a certain length of time, in manual drift mode, the smoke from your tyres will turn to blue flames, when this happens you have to release the drift button and you will get a mini turbo giving you a bit of a boost. If you continue until your tyres start burning orange you get an even better turbo boost!

Special Jump

Some of the jumps on the tracks also have boost lines on them as described above, when you go over one of these you get a small turbo boost and you jump up into the air while boosting! Just as you take off give the wheel a flick upwards at the front, this will make you do a special move, normally you spin over to the right. After you have performed your special move you get a massive turbo boost which can take you past quite a few cars in front or, extend your lead somewhat if already in front.

Items On The Track

There are also items on the tracks that can give you a turbo boost, or allow you to slow one of your opponents down. There are also things to look out for that can slow you down. There are 'go faster' lines and ramps dotted around the tracks, these are like red and silver arrows that flash slightly and when you drive over one of these you get a turbo boost. They can also be on ramps as mentioned above and these give you a boost as they catapult you into the air! There are also 3D flashing boxes dotted around the tracks, with question marks in them, driving through one of these gives you a special power that you can use by pressing the 'b' button whenever you want. These special powers include; turbo boosts, bullet bill, which briefly turns you in to a bullet whci then speeds along the track at great speed for a short time and also steers the course for you as it goes along, there are also things that you can use on your opponents to slow them down so you can get past them. These include; bannanas that you can drop on the track whenever you decide, lightning, which strikes everone else's cars with lightning and makes them spin out and shrink for a short time and blooper, which sprays ink on all the cars in front of you's windscreens making it hard for them to see where they are going for a short time. There are many more of these tricks and powers this is just a taster.

There are also items to look out for on the tracks that can slow you down, these include; bannanas as mentioned above, hit one of these and you will spin a couple of times and this slows you down, there are also fake question mark boxes, these have the question mark upside down and are slightly redder in my opinion, hitting one of these makes it explode and turns you over this stops you for a while and loses you a bit of time, there are also obsticles such as cows and wooden boxes amongst other things on some tracks, hitting one of these will just stop you for a second and lose you some time. Other tracks have mud in places and other things similar to this, driving through this will make you go very slowly, also the grass etc. at the edge of the tracks makes you go very slow as does water making it important to stay on the track, other tracks can be fallen off, this loses you a lot of time and you usually get overtaken by quite a few cars when doing this.

Is It Any Good?

If you have got this far with my review, you should know by now that I think this game is fantastic, if you didn't already know then it is fantastic, absolutely brilliant. Every christmas there is a present that is the most used on christmas day by everyone and goes down as the present of that christmas, traditionally it is something that cost about a pound prooving the statment that money does not buy you everything, however this year it was Mario Kart Wii which costs a bit more than a pound, but went down well with everyone, from my 7 year old niece to my mum and dad in their sixties. We did other things on christmas day but Mario Kart Wii was on and being played by someone for most of the day. As I mentioned earlier the game play is very easy to get the hang of and the playability of this game is brilliant, like most Wii games, the graphics are fairly average, but this does not matter as it is the playablilty that matters with this game.

I would obviously then, recomend this game to anyone, boy, girl, old, young I challenge anyone to try it out and not like it, it is deffinately worth getting the wheel to go with it as it does make playing the game slightly easier as opposed to just using the controller in a horizontal position. Like I said it was our present of the year this year and most played item on christmas day, you can pick it up and play it straight away without bothering with the instructions, and we have continued to play it since, my rating: ===9.5/10===

Price And Availability

I don't how much my version cost as it was a present, however I have seen the box set with wheel like mine for £34.99 in most shops I went in before christmas, it might be reduced in the sales now I haven't been out shopping yet since christmas. It was also about the same online at most places. You can get the game on its own for around the £30.00 mark and a wheel will set you back about a tenner for an official one and around a fiver for a non official one. It is available in most, if not all, computer game shops, supermarkets, ebay, etc..

Thanks For Reading, Also On Dooyoo