Quickie
Left it a little late tonight to write this, since I’ve been tidying up a number of little jobs today, and finishing some games that I’ve had on rental for about 3 weeks now. Most of my time this weekend was meant to be spent with Mario Kart Wii and Okami, but they fell by the wayside as I finished Viking. Of course, since I’m supposed to be reviewing Mario Kart and Okami, that’s bad prioritising on my part.
The Mario Kart series may be one of Nintendo’s strongest selling franchises, but in terms of quality, it has been on a steady slide since the initial entry. The main cause for this is the need on their behalf to make the game accessible. The thing is that Mario Kart always was pretty accessible – what Nintendo does to make the game more accessible only frustrates skilled players by stacking the odds against them. If you’re in first place in any Mario Kart game from Super Circuit onwards, chances are you’re going to cop a hiding from a blue shell and lightning at least once in a race. If you’re in last, you’ll get a blue shell, super star, bullet bill, golden mushroom or any other object that’s going to spit you into the top 3 in the next 15 seconds.
Normally I just grin and bear it with Mario Kart, but when I was playing on Friday, I experienced the game’s help from both perspectives – it happens very blatantly in the Wii version, a factor which makes me really not like the game at all. If I’m losing in a race, I would like to learn my lesson – if I race like crap, I deserve to come last and have to try again and do better by say, learning the course. Instead, the game gave me a series of power ups which put me from 12th place to first within 10 seconds, giving me the race and the cup.
I’ve yet to try the game online, but its safe to say at this stage that Mario Kart Wii is a bit of a bust. Maybe they should just do an update of the SNES version on Wii Ware with 4 player GP and Battle.
Reviews
UEFA Euro 2008 (PS3) at Strategy Informer
Army of Two (Xbox 360) at Internode Games Network
Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles (PSP) at Internode Games Network
Features
The Warp Pipe at Internode Games Network