Hey, everyone! I'm back again with yet another review. Today, I will be reviewing a great game called Mario Kart Wii, the 6th installment in the Mario Kart series. It's (obviously) for the Nintendo Wii gaming console. This game is highly regarded as one of the best games you can get for your Wii, as well as being the 2nd-best selling Mario game on the entire Wii console. As you may know, this game is an unrealistic racing game. You race across various Mario-styled courses, throwing items and getting hit by some as well. Here we go!

Graphics - 9

The graphics in Mario Kart Wii are definitely some of the best on the console. Everything is smooth, animations are realistic, and the textures are great, even for a Mario game. I have honestly never seen any graphical errors or bugs. Everything is near-perfect. So why not give the graphics a 10? Simply because of the lack of detail and the "cartoony" feel about the game. I give the graphics a 9.

Performance - 10
Online Play Performance - 10

This game performs almost unbelievably well. There is very rarely any lag on the game, even online. If there are multiple items in the same spot as well as an explosion hitting multiple racers, you still won't experience any lag. Mostly due to this, the game will also pretty much never crash. Performance gets a 10.

What about online play? It's probably choppy and poorly made just like Brawl's, right? Wrong. Mario Kart Wii should be all Nintendo companies' role model for online play. No lag, you rarely disconnect from the online server, and if something desyncs then it instantly catches up again. Yeah, it has great online performance. Enough to give it another 10.

Sound/Music - 7

The sound and music in this game is great. The tunes are exactly what you would call "catchy," but at least they don't sound like crap. Each of the 32 race tracks has its own individual soundtrack, as well as the battle stages. Combine those with the title music and the miscellaneous tracks, and you have a large variety of 135 songs in total. If you never learned how to count, that's a big-ish number. Here is most of the main/more important soundtrack. (link)

Then there are the sound effects. Most of them are very well designed. Some of them are... well, to say the least, they're quite annoying. Take Funky Kong (an unlockable character) for example. Every sound he makes is unbearably annoying. He's supposed to sound like an ape, but he rather sounds like an idiot that's overdosed on drugs and caffeine. Why must he yell so much? Here's his full voice track (link). But other than that, the sounds are pretty good and fitting.

Because the music and sounds are so good and there's so many tracks, I give them a rating of 9.

Convenience and Comfortability in the Controls - 9

The controls in this game are very convenient. You can use either the Gamecube controller (my choice), the Wii Remote, and the Wii Remote inside of Mario Kart Wii's exclusive Wii Wheel. For the Wii Remote, you hold it sideways and tilt it towards the direction you want to go. Your character will then steer in that direction, the sharpness depending on how much you turn the remote. However, if you turn it too much, the Wii Remote doesn't recognize it and it starts to steer as sharp as possible in the opposite direction. Just try not to steer that hard. Everything else is pretty great and convenient.

The GameCube controller? Even more convenient. There are multiple buttons for most of the actions you need to do (e.g. for the brakes and for items). I give the controls a 9.

Gameplay/Addictiveness - 10

Here we go, the best part of the game (duh). Mario Kart Wii is by far my favorite in the Mario Kart series. For starters, there is a huge variety of everything. Textures, soundtracks, race tracks, characters, etc. Mario Kart Wii is, of course, a racing game where you race as various characters from both the Mario and Donkey Kong universes. You throw items and objects at each other to make the game more "Mario-ish." This game is incredibly addicting due to the 32 racetracks, the character variety, and the items. I give the gameplay/addictiveness a 10.

Item Variety - 10

The items in Mario Kart Wii are totally and completely awesome. Its only rival that comes even close are the items from Mario Kart: Double Dash!! There are 19 items not including the item box which is used to receive these items. 2 of them are new and 1 of them is only in this game and the arcade game. Well, here we go. The items:

BOOSTS

Mushroom: The mushroom gives the player a short boost which allows full offroading. Used mainly for shortcuts.
Triple Mushrooms: A pack of 3 mushrooms. Duh.
Golden Mushroom: The Golden Mushroom allows the player an infinite amount of Mushrooms for 7.5 seconds. Probably my favorite item due to it allowing you to take massive?shortcuts.
Mega Mushroom (NEW): The Mega Mushroom turns the user giant for 7.5 seconds, allowing them to squash opponents in their path as well as full offroading abilities.

PROJECTILE ITEMS

Banana: The banana is, well, a banana. You place it behind you (or you can throw it in front of you), and whoever is unlucky enough to run into it spins out. You almost always get this in 1st place seeing as it's one of the most useless items. This can deflect red shells.
Triple Bananas: Gee, I wonder... A trail of 3 bananas drags behind you.
Green Shell: The green shell is an item that you throw in front or back of you that keeps going. It ricochets off of walls for awhile, so it's great if you take good aim.
Triple Green Shells: 3 green shells orbit around you. Each of them can be thrown.
Red Shell: The red shell is very useful if you are in 2nd or 3rd place. It seeks the player in front of you, following the racetrack to get to the opponent. This can be deflected by bananas.
Triple Red Shells: Gives your three red shells that orbit around you. They're awesome until the moment when someone bumps into you and hits all 3 of your shells, leaving you empty handed.

MISC/STATUS ITEMS

Spiny/Blue Shell: This shell is different from the others. It's almost completely undodgeable and goes directly to the racer in 1st place. It then explodes, flipping the player and anyone else who hits the explosion into the air. A dream come true when you're in second... as long as you don't get hit by it.
Star: The star is normally gotten in 8th place and below. It gives the user total and complete invincibility as well as full offroading and a small speed boost for 7.5 seconds. Destroys almost everything in its path.
Lightning: The lightning bolt can only be achieved in last place. It shocks every racer with a lightning bolt. Once hit, they spin out, turn small (and able to be squashed), and only drive about half speed. Very helpful if you're not too far behind.
Thunder Cloud (NEW-ISH): The thunder cloud is considered unlucky by many. It instantly puts a cloud above your head that gives you a lasting small speed boost as well as total offroading. However, it strikes you with lightning after 10 seconds. You can pass this to another character by bumping into them.
Bob-omb: The Bob-omb is the little bomb guys from the Mario series. You can drop this behind you or throw it in front of you. It goes off after about 3-5 seconds and creates a large explosion, spinning out everyone that hits it.
blooper : The most pointless item in the game. It affects everyone ahead of the player that uses it. The Blooper puts ink on your screen so you "can't see." What's so pointless about it? You can still see almost perfectly. It rarely affects gameplay.
Bullet Bill: Normally gotten in 11th or 12th place, this is probably the best item there is. You transform into a Bullet Bill, giving you super speed (faster than mushrooms). Even better, it puts the user in autopilot, so they don't have to steer. Even better yet, it knocks over anyone in the way and makes them lose their items.
POW Block (NEW): The POW Block puts a POW Block on everyone in front of the user's screen. It will pound twice before doing a final pound and spinning everyone out. This can be dodged if you are in the air or if you wheelie at the exact moment it does the third pound.

Whew. That took awhile. Item variety gets another 10... You know what? This is pointless. There's a 10 for pretty much everything.

Character and Kart Variety - 9

As you may know, there are various racers from the Mario series and the Donkey Kong series that you can play as as well as 2 Mii racer outfits. There are 3 classes that determine stats and karts/bikes: Small, Medium, and Large. You start with 12 characters and there are 14 more unlockable, totaling a whopping 26 playable characters. Each has its own unique stat boosts. So what are the stats? Speed (top speed), Weight (resistance to being knocked back by larger characters), Acceleration (time it takes to reach top speed), Handling (turning sharpness in automatic mode), Drift (turning sharpness in manual mode), Off-road (ability to maintain speed while off the road), and Mini-turbo (how effective a boost in manual mode is). Small characters have good acceleration, off-road, and handling, but low speed and weight. Medium characters are pretty much average. Large characters are the opposite of small; great speed and weight, but bad acceleration, off-road, and handling. I usually choose Rosalina (large) due to her great speed and handling.

The karts and bikes? There are 3 karts and 3 bikes for each class, so 18 vehicles altogether. 9 of them are unlockable. Each vehicle has its own unique stats. Karts are good for mini-boosts in manual mode as well as weight, while bikes allow wheelies which give you small speed boosts. I usually choose bikes because I abuse wheelies.

Since there are so many characters, vehicles, and stats, I give the variety a 9. Gosh, this game is good...

Courses - 8

As I have stated earlier, there are 32 courses altogether. 16 retro courses which are from previous Mario Kart titles, and 16 non-retro (or nitro) courses which are new to this installment. Some of the courses are very well designed and quite fun to race on. Some good ones are Wario's Gold Mine and Mushroom Gorge. However, there's always gotta be some bad ones. There's this one called Moonview Highway that has a whole bunch of cars that squash you, making you half as fast and screwing up the camera so you can barely see.. This course almost ruins the entire game. It sucks. Bad. I give the courses an 8.

I'm not saying I like to mod things a lot, but there's a mod for Mario Kart Wii that has 218 custom tracks. Some of them are really crappy, while others are amazing. One of them even has custom music... heck, that course literally has custom everything. Another great course is Heart of China. Search it on YouTube, it's a MASSIVE exploring course. This mod is called CTGP Revolution, and I recommend it if you love Mario Kart Wii but you're tired of the same 32 courses.

Story - N/A

There is no story. There's really nothing much else to say. Let's just pretend that the world is going to collapse unless you win some Grand Prixs.

Depth - 9

This installment is by far the largest in the entire series. Only this, MKDS, and MK7 (not including MK8) have had 32 courses. None of the others have had 26 characters, though, and a few haven't even 18 karts and bikes. This is actually the only game yet that has bikes. This game also has a really big amount of items as well as music tracks, so it's pretty awesome. I give the depth a 9. Nope, not a 10. A 9.

Difficulty - ? (completely varies)

We're nearing the end of this review by talking about the difficulty.?There are 3 difficulties and a mode that reverses the directions of turns.?This game's difficulty strongly varies between which modes you choose, which courses you choose, which characters and karts/bikes you choose, luck, and how good the player is. For a beginner, this game can be pretty hard to get used to. However, once you've fully played each of the courses a few times, you can become pretty good at this game. Myself, even as a Mario Kart Wii Veteran (been playing since release), I can't guarantee what I would say about the difficulty. I can easily get star ranks on Grand Prix mode on difficult Mirror, but then again there are courses that I couldn't beat even if my life depended on it (e.g. Moonview Highway). So I give the difficulty a question mark.

Overall - 9.2

Overall, Mario Kart Wii is an amazing game. It has incredible graphics, good sound, great variety, performance, and it's REALLY addictive. It has a lot to offer, and can be a game for gamers with any amount of experience. You can be a beginner (not a complete beginner though) and play easy mode on an easy grand prix, you can be pretty average and play medium mode, you can be expert and place hard mode and/or mirror mode, and you can be pro and play online worldwide against those scary Japanese gamers. It's fun for the whole family! Overall, Mario Kart Wii gets an incredible 9.2.

Well, then. That took awhile. I hope you enjoyed it (if you actually read it fully. Skimming doesn't count). Feel free to give me feedback and/or criticism! 2300 words