This is a review about my latest addiction – Mario Karts! The game is in simple terms a driving game where you can race in the different grand prix cups, against friends or random people online as well as a few other game options. I have never particularly enjoyed racing games on any games console as I am horrendous at them and lose all the time and in my frustration usually end up throwing the control at my opponents head and get banned from playing! We brought Mario Karts for the Wii as we were sold by the adverts where you have the whole family playing against each other using the Wii Wheels! We had also heard some friends saying how much they loved theirs and the next day had ordered the game on Amazon.

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Controls
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The promotion of the game shows players controlling their Mario Kart using the Wii Wheel. The wheel is nothing more than a plastic shell for the remote, but its design makes it worthwhile. You slot your Wii Remote horizontally into the wheel so that the buttons are facing you. We currently have three Wii Wheels and three remotes so the fact that there is no fiddling around to attach it is very useful as the remote can simply be pulled out of the wheel if you want to play a different game. The wheel has a hole where the end of the remote sits so that the main front sensor can be picked up by the Wii. This means that when selecting the settings in the Mario Karts game or when switching on the Wii you can use the remote whilst it is attached to the wheel by simply pointing the sensor towards the Wii as you would normally.
The Wii Wheel has an additional button on the back of the wheel, which lines up with the “B” button on the Wii remote so that you can still use that button. That is it in terms of features of the Wheel. It seems a little ridiculous given how much it costs! But to give it credit – it is made of a thick white plastic and feels very robust so its not going to break easily. The Wii Wheel means that you can literally steer as you play. The wheel itself has no sensors, it is purely providing a shell for the remote but it works perfectly. You can steer round corners and do wheelies and tricks but pulling up the wheel. With your thumb on the button near the end to accelerate and easy access to the other buttons as needed,

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Tracks
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There are 32 different tracks to play on and you start off with access to 16 of these. The tracks are separated into Cups (the mushroom cup, the lightning cup, the banana cup etc). Each cup has 4 tracks and winning on one of the tracks will unlock other tracks or karts or characters. Some of the tracks are from previous Mario racing games and some are new to Mario Karts. There are a few tracks that are quite simple and I do prefer these as it gives me a better chance of winning! There are plenty of complicated tracks, which in a couple of cases I do feel are too complicated as you spend more time falling off the track than actually racing on it! Although I do feel that the extra features of the tracks make the game more exciting. Traditional racing games with clear tracks bore me to tears but with Mario Karts there are jumps, boost panels, things to avoid etc and this adds to the fun. My youngest brother is 9 and loves the bright interesting designs of many of the tracks, a couple he finds too hard to co-ordinate on but still shows some determination so they aren’t wasted on him. One slightly negative point here is that because the tracks are very detailed, it can make it hard to work out where you need to go at times, especially when playing on a split screen where you have to look quite carefully to work out which way to go!

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Single Player
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The single player mode gives you a few gameplay options. When playing as a single player you have a driving licence which records how well you are doing and any trophies that you have received. The main single player gameplay mode is to participate in the Grand Prix – you choose a cup you want to compete in which takes you through the four tracks and you need to try and get first, second or third place to get a trophy and unlock other levels, characters or karts. Each Grand Prix has three difficulty levels – starting with the 50cc cup. Each time you play you get given a grade to show how well you raced – this means that even when you have completed the cups the game still has potential as you want to improve your gameplay grades. In each Grand Prix race you play against 12 other players who you can use your weapons against and are likely to be blasted by theirs a few times!

The final option for single player gameplay is battle mode. Here you can play on specially designed tracks to either pop your opponents balloons or collect all the coins. I wasn’t very impressed at all with this mode of gameplay as it was too difficult and bored me which is real shame as it does seem to let the game down a bit.

In multiplayer mode you can also play battles where you play on the same team or opposite teams to try and burst the other teams balloons or collect the most coins – again I feel that this is a real disappointment as it is too difficult and goes on for too long making it boring. I have not yet found anyone that particularly wants to play battle mode so this is a feature of the game that I feel will rarely be used, but at least the quality of the multi player racing makes up for this.