Mariokart

I liked Mariokart DS. It was fun, exciting, had great multiplayer, and was one of my first Nintendo DS games.

Now, several years later, Mariokart Wii comes along, toting everyone's favorite motion gimmick with the addition of a hunk of plastic shaped like a steering wheel for an electric gokart designed for six year olds that travels slower than just walking.

After swiftly giving up on the motion based hunk of crap that was the wiimote I downgraded to the Game Cube controller, and found it to be a much more enjoyable experience. It's got to say something about game and console design when using a controller from a previous generation means you beat the person using the fancy new technology designed a half a decade later hand over fist.

Leaving aside the game developers' insistence on using the newest Nintendo gimmick, the game is relatively fun. The controls on the Game Cube Controller are fluid and responsive, and the graphics are as decent as the Wii can get. So now you might be getting the assumption that I like Mariokart Wii. That's about as right as me saying that I like a bible thumping democrat. There are elements I like, and other elements that I just CAN'T STAND.

Full fledged races are one of those things. The game relies 95% on being lucky enough to get a red shell at the right time and 5% on being half decent at racing games. I have had repeated scenarios where I am ten miles in the lead of the race, and suddenly some asshat in last place gets a blue shell and shoots it at me, causing my bike to spin about and causing me to flail my arms around helplessly as every racer and their mother finishes the race.

Now that we're on the subject of bikes, I'd like to stay on it for a moment. I like the bikes, and I think they're great addition. But now that I have bikes, I can't imagine ever wanting to ever go back to karts, because bikes are far superior in the forementioned 5% where you actually race. This also completely alienates me from ever playing any other Mariokart game other than Mariokart Wii, because every time I try to get anywhere in a kart playing Mariokart DS, I slam into the nearest wall because I look funny at the drift button.

Another thing that I can't stand aboot Mariokart Wii is the level design. The people who created Wario's Mine and Rainbow Road and half of the other maps must have been shooting heroin while popping antidepressants with a barrel of wine while clubbing themselves over the head with a bat covered in an IQ destroying virus. The over emphasis on being lucky enough to not have the malevolent god of that track decide that it would be hilarious for you to be crushed by an unnecessary weight placed in an otherwise empty location is completely mind boggling. What were they thinking? Did they think it was FUN to fall into a pit fifty times in a row while the entire population of the Nintendo Universe races past, effortlessly bouncing across the ten mile expanse of two centimeter wide platforms?

Which brings up the question of, WHY THE HELL ARE THEY RACING THROUGH THESE PLACES? There is no plot to this game, unless the plot is watching me destroy my Wii in frustration. These people are hurling banana peels and shells that somehow can tell the difference between first place and second place and fly and picking up boxes that cause you to become a huge bullet for NO REASON.