Our copy of Mario Kart Wii showed up at the house yesterday and we spent a good chunk of the evening checking it out.
Wii Wheel
For starters, the steering wheel is great. It’s lightweight, yet very durable (the kids kept dropping it) and it was very well thought out. The backside of the wheel has a hole for the wii remote strap and a button for accessing the B button on your remote. The Wii Remote fits snugly into the center of the wheel, yet is easy to remove when you need to take it out. There is even a transparent window on the side of the wheel so you can still use the wii remote while it is housed inside the wheel. I was very impressed with all aspects of it.
The Game
Mario Kart Wii shows the same level of polish that Nintendo is known for. The menus and title screen were simple and easy to navigate and getting right into the game took no time at all.
The Controls
My big concern with most Wii titles to date is the accuracy of their controls. This is not the case with Mario Kart Wii. There was a slight learning curve to get things going, but once you get it down it is an altogether joy to play.
There is a lot more to this game and we have barely scratched the surface. I’ll save the rest for the formal review, but if you are on the fence about this right now allow me to sway you. From what I’ve seem of the game so far, it’s great. I didn’t want to do anything but play it all night long. I can’t say that this will be the case for everyone, but I sincerely enjoyed myself. I can’t wait to see what multi-player is like.
Nintendo has sent over the schedule for the Mario Kart Wii Driving School being held in Houston, TX this weekend.
The event takes place at the iFest: International Festival on Saturday, April 26, 2008, from 12:00pm to 10:00pm and again on Sunday, April 27, 2008, from 12:00pm to 4:00pm.
The MKW Driving School event gives parents and kids a crash course in
Kart racing with the new Wii Wheel perpipheral. A 24′ glass display
Driving School truck houses the experience and visitors get an official
Mario Kart driver’s license personalized with their photo, nickname,
and vehicle of choice upon completion.
The MKW truck will be parked on Walker Street, south of Tranquility Park between Bagby St and Smith St. [map]
Admission to the iFest: International Festival is required.
Nintendo sent over the full schedule of details for the upcoming Mario Kart Wii Driving School Event in Dallas, TX.
The event will take place tomorrow, Thursday, April 24th from 9:00am to 2:00pm at the Dallas Zoo [map] and from 3:00pm to 8:00pm at SpeedZone Dallas [map].
The MKW Driving School event gives parents and kids a crash course in Kart racing with the new Wii Wheel perpipheral. A 24′ glass display Driving School truck houses the experience and visitors get an official Mario Kart driver’s license personalized with their photo, nickname, and vehicle of choice upon completion.
If you plan on attending the Dallas Zoo event, keep in mind that regular Zoo admission is required to attend.
Earlier this month Hudson sent over a a demo disc for their upcoming Deca Sports title. It’s not surprising that developers are still going after the market created by Wii Sports. Wii Sports was meant to be a simple yet shallow tech demo to show off what the Wii was capable of. Instead, it became the defacto standard by which many Wii games are still compared to. READ MORE
As the New York Comic Con opened to the public on Friday, Activision publically announced the mystery Marvel superhero project on their 2008 slate – Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. On the floor of the con, I chatted with Graham Fuchs, the game’s producer. While Graham’s just off of the totally underwhelming Spider-Man: Friend or Foe, he does have a quality pedigree – his resume includes two installments of the Jedi Knight trilogy, for instance. READ MORE
