Date: 2008-11-02 11:52:02 Created: null
For Wii
If you've ever played Mario Kart, you know what this is like and what you will think about it.
Especially since fully half the tracks are remakes/ports of tracks from previous games ...
I tried, I really did. I wanted the steering wheel to be a good controller.
So I raced.
And I missed jump turbo chances.
Instead I made accidental wheelies, falling into pits as a result.
I felt uncertain of how much rotation actually had effect.
I tried to tell myself I just needed more experience. Nintendo wouldn't throw in a thing like this if the game wasn't meant for it, right? I just needed to get better, to learn more.
Then I plugged in a gamecube controller.
Damn! Look how much I learned!
Fooling around with the wheel (or even worse, with just a remote held sideways) is just inferior to the other control options. End of story. If you happen to love the wheel, more power to you. I still sort of wish, deep down, that the wheel might turn out to be a fully valid controller option, but I have yet to see any indication of this.
Playing Mario Kart Wii online is great fun, and a very smooth experience. It's light years from Xbox Live when it comes to features (communicate with the other players? Lord no!), but it works great for quick sessions (which can very easily turn into longer ones). I also enjoy the rankings, the sending of ghost cars to your friends and how the game finds ghost data from people slightly better than you which you can download and use to improve.