Mario Kart Wii

Kendrik

Kendrik

Moderator
Staff member
So, somehow, I don't own Mario Kart Wii. I've played it. I rather enjoyed it when I did. So, I'm thinking about getting it since, as of when this chapter had a little more activity, it seemed to be the most commonly owned game.

Only reasons I'm hesitant to get it are because it's not cheap (and I am)... and because I think I'd enjoy ModNation Racers more.

Help me, Tribe of Judah-ers, you're my only hope. What should I do? :P
 
You won't enjoy ModNation Racers more.

Game will make you break your controller, your back-up controller, and the TV remote because it's nearby.

Cheap AI is cheap. :|
 
Kendrik said:
Only reasons I'm hesitant to get it are because it's not cheap (and I am)... and because I think I'd enjoy ModNation Racers more.
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I've read that the opponent AI in ModNation Racers breaks what would be an otherwise fantastic game. But that's opinion. I've only played the demo, so I can't speak with any authority on the topic.

Kendrik said:
Help me, Tribe of Judah-ers, you're my only hope. What should I do? :P
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If money's tight, you may have to skip it for now. Or try to find it used.

Unfortunately, Mario Kart titles tend to hold their original sale price. I checked local used game stores and found that Double Dash was selling for $30-$35 at most locations. Not a good sign. (I skipped the purchase. Double Dash was a step down after the awesomeness of MK64, IMO.)

And I wouldn't drop $50 on an online multiplayer game as old as MKWii, especially given Nintendo's refusal to patch exploits and cheats. MKWii's strength, as is usually the case with Wii games, lies primarily with local multiplayer.

But if you have multiple people who would play local multiplayer matches with you, then it may very well be worth the dollars once you've collected a few more.
 
Tek has a Mario Kart post without mentioning a blue shell? Call up John Cusack, now it's all 2012 up in herr. >_>

And yeah, the AI is stupid broken. You could be in 1st place the entire race only to get slammed with multiple Blue Shell type weapons when you're feet from the finish line. By the time your kart resets, you'll finish in 9th place. And that's on casual, too. :)

In all honesty, Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing is the only kart racer I touch as of the past few months. It's a solid racer with fun tracks, neat super abilities, plenty of uncheap weapons, and has a wide array of characters. There's plenty to love, only minor issue is the framerate can dip in the much bigger track sections, but I had more fun in three hours than I did with my entire MNR/MKWii playthroughs.

Oh yuh, did I mention the PS3 version is $15 on Amazon? ;)

Also, Double Dash is the best MK release yet, Tek doesn't even. <_<
 
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Keero said:
Tek has a Mario Kart post without mentioning a blue shell? Call up John Cusack, now it's all 2012 up in herr. >_>

And yeah, the AI is stupid broken. You could be in 1st place the entire race only to get slammed with multiple Blue Shell type weapons when you're feet from the finish line. By the time your kart resets, you'll finish in 9th place. And that's on casual, too. :)
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Actually, I was talking about ModNation Racers AI being broken, but MKWii is unfortunately broken in other ways. Perhaps not enough to bother you when playing with friends and family on your couch in your home, but definitely irritating playing online.

The main weakness of MKWii (aside from the Blue Shell thing, which is as frustrating as Keero implies) is the lack of customization. You HAVE to play with 12 players on a track, even when some of the smaller remake tracks are clearly not suited to 12 players. You can't enable or disable items like you can in, say, Super Smash Bros. Brawl or Timesplitters Future Perfect. You can't exit out of the game when online opponents select Rainbow Road. (You can, however, completely power off the Wii, which will you save you the 5-7 minutes you would waste otherwise.)

MKWii is a solid game overall, but there are some glaring weak spots. I still feel like it was money well spent, but I also played it with family and friends for many hours within the first 2 weeks of release.

Keero said:
In all honesty, Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing is the only kart racer I touch as of the past few months. It's a solid racer with fun tracks, neat super abilities, plenty of uncheap weapons, and has a wide array of characters. There's plenty to love, only minor issue is the framerate can dip in the much bigger track sections, but I had more fun in three hours than I did with my entire MNR/MKWii playthroughs.
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I had an opportunity to play SSASR and it was much more fun than expected. Yes, it's a shameless clone, but who cares so long as it's fun?

Keero said:
Oh yuh, did I mention the PS3 version is $15 on Amazon? ;)
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Along with 5 or 6 other games I want. >_<

EDIT: That being said, I'd probably still buy it if I saw it for 10 bucks.

I played the Wii version, but I imagine the PS3 version has better online play. Or at least gives Sega the OPTION of patching cheats and hacks.

Keero said:
Also, Double Dash is the best MK release yet, Tek doesn't even. <_<
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It's statements that remind me that I'm 9 years older than you. That insight has nothing at all to do with maturity--just which games we played when we were younger.

Double Dash can be fun in its own right, but Mario Kart local multiplayer peaked with MK64 (and specifically, on the Wario Stadium track).
 
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Hey now, I've played quite a bit of MK64 (and the SNES/DS release), I just thought 2v2 had a pretty cool feel to it compared to 1v1v1v1.
 
I think I'm the only guy on the planet who isn't crazed about Mario Kart 64. It's great and all... but I practically breathed Super Mario Kart for years. MK64 just wasn't the same to me, and I just couldn't fall in love with it.

Being that it came out when I was younger, without money to spend on games, and it was always out of my price range... well... that could have been a factor in why I was never able to fall in love with it. :P

Blue shells are the worst thing to have ever happened in a game. Worst. Ever. I hate them. So passionately.

Admittedly, I curse (even if inaudibly) in response to Mario Kart more than any other thing in the world, gaming or otherwise. There's a funny xkcd comic about that, but the page contains profanity, so I leave it to Google searches for the curious.

Back to the topic at hand, sounds like good enough reasons to pass on MKWii for the time being. Thanks for the input. It'd be fun with my family or online whenever that happens, but it'd cost about $20 more than I wanna spend on it. I'd rather apply them funds toward Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

Marvel vs. Capcom 3...........*drools*
 
Kendrik said:
I think I'm the only guy on the planet who isn't crazed about Mario Kart 64. It's great and all... but I practically breathed Super Mario Kart for years. MK64 just wasn't the same to me, and I just couldn't fall in love with it.
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To each his or her own, I suppose. I played Mario Kart 64 with Elihu, Eltolad (another ToJ member that's been inactive since he moved to Indonesia), and other friends at youth group, so there's nostalgia at work in me, I'll admit. There are a lot of games that I played with Elihu that I have every fond memories of (Mario Bros., Streets of Rage 1, SoR2, Toejam & Earl, Street Fighter II Turbo, Scorched Earth--the list goes on).

Kendrik said:
Being that it came out when I was younger, without money to spend on games, and it was always out of my price range... well... that could have been a factor in why I was never able to fall in love with it. :P
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Money (or the lack thereof) does indeed have a tendency to color our views.

Kendrik said:
Blue shells are the worst thing to have ever happened in a game. Worst. Ever. I hate them. So passionately.
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It's not so much the blue shells as the severity and frequency of the blue shells. Also, the lack of option to disable individual items in local multiplayer or online friend multiplayer matches.

Kendrik said:
Admittedly, I curse (even if inaudibly) in response to Mario Kart more than any other thing in the world, gaming or otherwise. There's a funny xkcd comic about that, but the page contains profanity, so I leave it to Google searches for the curious.
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I was thinking of the xkcd comic after reading the first few words of the paragraph. I agree that we shouldn't link it here due to language, but it is one of my favorite web comics ever. I'm not proud of that, but I can't lie. It's funny stuff.

Kendrik said:
Back to the topic at hand, sounds like good enough reasons to pass on MKWii for the time being. Thanks for the input. It'd be fun with my family or online whenever that happens, but it'd cost about $20 more than I wanna spend on it. I'd rather apply them funds toward Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
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Understandable. It's your money--spend it on what you enjoy (after paying bills and tithing to your local church, of course).
 
I heard modnation had a patch that lowered the stupidly difficult AI.

I have MK, but someone used a lightning cloud on my Wii. Will be out till I scrounge up $85 for repair.
 
I did play the AI patch. It was on default, so I switched it to the new "Casual" mode. I sold off the game after a few days. T_T
 
Tek7 said:
Source? I'd consider purchasing the game in the future if that was true.
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http://www.joystiq.com/2010/07/13/modnation-racers-career-mode-getting-casual-difficulty/

Added casual.

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/08/04/modnation-racers-1-02-patch-improves-load-times-by-nearly-30/

Reduced load times by a bit - load times were pretty long in MNR. My biggest beef with this is that there is no game menu - you are forced to start out in ModNation Central where you drive around and hit up the mode you want. It's fun and all, but takes far, far too long to load when you simply want to get to a multiplayer online game.

Game does support split screen online (though not in ranked mode) and I believe 4 on the same console...without friend codes. Also, the track design tools are absolutely amazing.
 
Since my gaming budget is approaching zero, since I already own Mario Kart Wii, and since Sonic & Sega All-stars Racing looks like a better simple kart racer at first glance, I'll probably skip ModNation Racers for a while yet.

</offtopic>

So. Mario Kart Wii. Who has it? Who still plays it? And what instant messaging networks are you on regularly?

I have MKWii. I still play it (on occasion). And I'm on all major IM networks (see my forums profile for my IM IDs).
 
that, google talk and steam are really the only ones I sort of use but I don't have anything really up and running at all times... Life can be too busy and it's hard to start up an impromptu match. If we organized a certain night than that would work better with my busy schedule.
 
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