Currently Playing : Mario Kart Wii

I have something of a chequered history with Mario Kart. The original game was the one that made me sell my Mega Drive and buy a SNES. It was and I guess probably still is a classic. I missed out on the N64 (although judging by the tracks that have made it into this version didn't miss much). Picked up and returned Double Dash cos it was rubbish but really enjoyed the GBA version that seemed very true to the spirit of the original.

So on to this version for the Wii. All the classic ingredients are there. There's a good selection of new tracks and some cherry picked from all the previous games (all the N64 tracks are rubbish seemingly designed to show off the power of the system rather than race well). A large roster of characters from Nintendo (including some that unlock based on what other games you've got. I got one for having played Super Mario Galaxy.) and a wide selection of karts and motorbikes.

However it's just too fucking brutally random to be much fun once you get past the early 50cc races. All the balance of the SNES game seems to have been thrown out. There's all manner of new weapons that are just plain annoying and the AI can hit you with two or three in a row meaning that you can go from first to last in literally seconds. There's nothing worse than getting hit by a blue shell that is indefensible against, then hit by lightning and then run over while your small by the AI that are rapidly catching you while you're being bitch slapped. In the old game you had to get a top four finish to move onto the next race of four in each round. This game does away with that. Finish twelth and you're very unlikely to have enough points to get the gold but there's nothing you can do apart from start again. From race one. Very annoying.

There's also the matter of the controls. In general the wheel works quite well. There's the choice of manual or automatic drift. Manual drift gives you a little speed boost when you finish the drift successfully. Which should give you a performance advantage. Sadly it turns out while it's fun to manually drift you've got far more chance of winning leaving it on automatic. Combined with the fact that you've only got one drift bumper as oppossed to the old L + R of old games and the game occassionally gets confused which way you want to drift and sends you off in the wrong direction.

Last night I finally finished the 150cc races and unlocked the Mirror Mode. Once I've finished that I swear I'll never touch the single player again. I should say it's not all doom and gloom. The multiplayer racing is as fun as ever.