by Glenn Bates
Do any of you guys remember the Nintendo Wii? This little thing is home to the best racing game of all time: Mario Kart Wii. Many people overlook this game, just thinking it is bad. I and many others, however, have put hundreds of hours into this game, learning all the tips and tricks to set a competent time and win the most races. So I will lead you through the steps to become a Mario Kart Wii master.
Upon opening the game, you have to create a license to open the main menu. Once on the menu, there are four options to choose from.
-One Player: Play a Grand Prix and other modes alone.
-Multiplayer: Play Vs mode, where you just race, or Battle with 2-4 players.
-Nintendo WFC: Play online against people around the world. This mode does not work anymore, as the Wifi Connection is so old, this has been replaced by Wiimmfi, which I will talk about later.
-Mariokart Channel- This is where you check your Time Trial Rankings and was where the tournaments once were.
I am going to only talk about the Single Player mode for the beginning. You have four modes to play at the start, but I suggest doing the Grand Prix first. This is your classic, four race dash for first place.
Once you select Grand Prix, you can pick your character and kart/bike. Characters are divided into three weight classes: lightweight, middleweight, and heavyweight. Lightweights have super fast acceleration, middleweights are well balanced, and heavyweights have high top speeds. All three have different kart and bike selections.
In standard single player, your kart and bike selection is all up to you. If you choose a kart, you have a larger hitbox and a different kind of Mini Turbo, called the Orange Mini Turbo. This is a drift boost gained by holding the B button as you go through a corner. Bikes, on the other hand, have a weaker blue Mini Turbo, but you can wheelie to go super fast in a straight line, (but it is worth noting that you lose the ability to turn while doing so).
There is one feature that only nine bikes have that is completely broken! These nine bikes have a different drift style compared to the rest of the game. Dubbed the “Inside Drifting 9” by the general consensus, and foolishly called the “Hang-On” drift by the Super Mario Wiki (not all wikis writers are experts). While on these bikes, instead of sticking their foot out and skidding around the corner, these bikes lean into the corner, getting a tighter line. Long story short, Inside Drift gives you added mobility and is way better on most courses. But the AI is really not great at driving, so you can use anything.
Once your character and vehicle are ready to roll, you can pick a cup. The tracks in this game are amazing. They are mostly fun to drive on (I'm looking at you, Wario’s Gold Mine) and are still graphically competent, but not too all impressive to this day. There are four cups to choose from at the start, and you unlock more by placing 1st in all of them.
The Cups:
The Mushroom, Flower, Shell, and Banana cups are available at the start.
Once you do certain Grand Prix, you unlock a character or a vehicle. Even if you do not have all cups unlocked, you can still play VS mode, where you can pick any track, even if they are not in the same cup. You can also dwell in my favorite mode on the regular game, Time Trials! This is where you get three mushrooms and any vehicle of your choice, and try to set a personal best or even a regional record! I have come close multiple times, but then fell short.
There are also local 2-4 player multiplayer. This is what most people think of when playing Mario Kart: Having a blast racing with friends. I highly recommend getting some friends together and dueling in the VS mode here. It is just standard racing, but the screen is split so everyone can see where they are.
Now, the Nintendo WFC (WiFi Connection) menu just makes me sad. If you click on either 1 or 2 players, the game will try to connect and give you an error message, saying the service is discontinued. So this means you cannot play online anymore… Sike!! The Mario Kart community has made a whole other network so Mario Kart Wii (and Mario Kart DS) can still be played online. The network is called Wiimmfi. It is just as great as Nintendo WFC, and in some cases, it is even better, as it has proper anti-cheat systems in place. There is only one downside to this, and it has to do with your kart/bike selection. If you used an inside drifting bike for single player, then you are fine. If not, you should start to get used to seeing 11 Funky Kong's all riding the Flame Runner, the best vehicle in the game. Wiimmfi is full of people who want to play the game “competitively.” Personally, I just play online to have fun, but these players can be your worst nightmare: hitting you with a bazillion shells in a row, target shocking you (shocking you just while you're on a ramp so you fall down), and bumping you off constantly. But once you keep your head when all others are losing theirs, you will eventually be successful online.
WARNING: SERIOUS TECH ALERT
Is the regular game getting old to you? Are the tracks becoming bland and boring to you? Do you want more online play? Well, look no further than CTGP Revolution, the most insane hack/exploit in gaming history.
Created by MrBean, the god of Mario Kart Wii, and Chadderz, this hack not only gets you Wiimmfi, but all the characters and karts/bikes AND over 250 custom tracks. These tracks should be in the regular game, they’re that good. Some of them have crazy branching paths, like Undiscovered Offlimit and Final Grounds, while some take existing ideas and make them new, like Volcanic Skyway and Piranha Plant Pipeway. The codes needed to get CTGP are super easy to obtain as well. CTGP also just received an update, where 200cc races can now be played. These races jack up the top speed of your bike to 1.5x and decrease the weight, so you can fly through the air on each and every jump.
MrBean added two mechanics that work wonders in 200cc. The first one is brake-drifting. This is a very technical maneuver that requires the use of both the drift and brake buttons at the same time. This is insanely useful as it allows any other bike to be viable in 200cc other than the Mach Bike and Bullet Bike. But I am no good at this because I use a Wii Remote with a Nunchuk/GameCube Controller and the brake drifting is B and down on the directional pad. This is weirdly uncomfortable. The other huge mechanic is fast falling. If you go off a ramp while holding down on the analog stick, you will fall much faster than if you did not. This can be your demise on tracks like Mushroom Gorge and Waluigi Stadium, but are welcome on tracks like Toad’s Factory.
All in all, Mario Kart Wii is a phenomenal game that should be played if you can. This game kept me alive through the onslaught of people begging me to play Fortnite. This game needs to be recognized for all it’s worth as the best Mario Kart game, and in my opinion, the best game of all time.
Glossary:
spindrift: drifting one way, then pushing the stick in the opposite direction
ultra shortcut: shortcut that skips laps
shock dodge: using a Star or Mega Mushroom to dodge a shock, this is a huge advantage to you
shroomless: when you pull off a shortcut without mushrooms
low trick: tricking while holding the analog stick forward, this is similar to fastfalling
strat: short term for strategy
bonking: hitting a wall that makes you lose all your speed, if you want to catch up, just pull a standstill mini-turbo and you will get back up to speed almost instantly
wall clip: This is a strat used in many Ultra Shortcuts. It is done when you clip an angle using a mushroom to launch yourself in the air. As SwordOfSeals, the creator of many ultra shortcuts once quipped: “Hitting things at weird speeds, with weird angles, does weird things in this game.”