Mario Kart Wii is the sixth game in the Mario Kart series. Developed by Nintendo EAD and published by Nintendo, it is a racing game. Just like its prequels the Mario Kart Wii has not disappointed gamers worldwide. Released in April 2008 the game comes with Wii wheel accessory. This allows the player a better handling of the vehicle. The game has some new features. It has motorbikes and can support a maximum of twelve players online. This is the second game of the series to use Nintendo Wi-Fi connection, due to this online racing is possible.
The Mario Kart Wii has 24 characters to choose from, highest in the Mario series. There are also two Mii characters. Initially, when the game begins a player can choose only from a list of twelve characters. The rest are added as you move ahead in the game. There are six new characters and the rest 19 are from previous games. The characters are divided into three categories, eight in each category. Next about the vehicles. Unlike its prequels, this game has motorbikes. There are 36 vehicles available for the player to choose. They are divided into three classes based on the character’s weight. Only certain karts and motorbikes are available for a particular weight category. The weight also decides the performance. The vehicles are different based on seven parameters that are, mini-turbo, speed, drift, acceleration, weight, handling and off-road. Mario Kart Wii gives its players 32 tracks off which sixteen are new. The rest are from the previous games. A maximum of twelve characters can participate at a time. Players win items by hitting into them. The items won are used for offence, defence or to increase the power of the engine.
Four game modes are offered by this game, namely, Grand Prix, Time Trial, Versus Mode and Battle Mode. The Grand Prix mode is available only in single player mode. There are a series of Grand Prix cup with four races each. Player can race in 50cc, 100cc and 150cc segments against eleven computer players. In Time Trial player is supposed to finish the race as fast as possible. The best time is saved as a ghost. In Versus mode players compete with each other on the same race track. They may play with or without the artificial intelligence players. Fourth one is the Battle mode. It has two sub modes, Balloon Battle and Coin Battle. The players in this mode are divided into two teams and they race with three balloons attached to their karts. Players lose a balloon and points every time they are hit by opponent. In Coin Battle players have to collect coins and they lose coins when hit by opponents.
The game was a hit from the very day of its launch. On the launch day it sold 300,000 copies in Japan. More than a million copies were sold in less than a month’s time. Mario Kart Wii was the best selling game of the second week of April in UK. It had the eighth biggest opening sales in the history of UK. It was the second best game in the month of April in US.
