[Review] And a reminder I'm not dead

So, want to know what ruins your motivation to write? Sudden unemployment? Want to know what helps? All those unbeaten video games still left over from Christmas, which a responsible and busy adult would have beaten over the course of several months. This makes it hard to focus on making blog posts, especially when nobody seems to read or comment on the blog. Though obviously updating more than once a month will also help.

Fortunately, while I'm still light on new ideas, all these video games mean that I have a lot more semi-recent reviews. I say semi-recent because it was only in last December that I became the semi-reluctant owner of a shiny new 360, and my entire collection consists of games a year or two old as I play catchup and avoid new game prices. The latter is subject to change if and if I get a new and decently paying job, and probably not before. They were certainly quality games, though. In the last two months, I finished Bioshock, Mass Effect, and Persona 4, some of the best games I've played in years. And there was Mario Kart: Wii.

This is the subject of today's post, and admittedly much was already written about this topic. In short, the game has...issues. At times it felt like one of my biggest gaming disappointments, and other times if felt like pure, untainted childhood, or at least the rare good parts. Either way, I played it far more and for longer than I intended, either out of enjoyment or out of vengeance.

To be kind, the game is one of the most schizophrenic titles out there. A lot of gamers use it as a scapegoat for Nintendo's "casual" direction, but that's not quite right. This game's biggest mistake isn't catering to the casual or the hardcore, but trying to appease both, and in doing so, failing miserably.

Most reviewers seem to focus on the "casual" side, so let's start with that. The Mario Kart franchise has had a single rule since at least the N64 title; if you're in first, you won't stay in first, at least not easily. Part of that's just programming the AI to be slower if the player is behind and insanely fast when the player is in front, and ensuring that the assigned "good" computer finish near the front every lap to say in point competition.

But in the Mario Kart games, balance usually comes from items. When you're in first, you won't get anything more useful than a banana peel. Meanwhile, characters in the back can turn invincible, blast the entire battlefield with lightning, or launch an attack that soon hits the race leader with near-certain accuracy. Mario Kart Wii continues this philosophy and makes it much, much worse. The normal race now consists of twelve racers, not eight, and there are even more ways to attack the entire battlefield, like the POW Block, or go from last to first in seconds, like the Bullet Bill. At times, it seems impossible to even RACE in a racing game with all the instant hit effects going off. I believe my record is getting hit with a half-dozen instant doom attacks on a single track.

But that's only half of the game's issue. Yes, the normal race is now a casual free-for-all that can reward luck as often as skill. But Nintendo also included a tradition of unlocking features in the game: new characters, new karts and bikes, even entirely new track sets and difficulty levels. Barely an eighth of the entire game is available from the start. Most of these features are unlocked by playing in "grand prix" mode, a single-player competition across four tracks. To unlock many of these features, one must get the highest score on these four tracks, which usually means coming in first for at least most of those tracks.

Now you can see the problem. Casual players want to play this game with their friends in as relaxed a manner as possible; this is a party game. But to even see half the game, one player has to work, alone, for hours! And that frantic play becomes far less fun when you absolutely MUST come in first regularly to not waste your time. And your only choice if something goes wrong is to quite the entire grand prix. Nothing is more frustrating than racing well enough on three tracks only to fall apart on the fourth, except for maybe racing well on all four tracks, and then getting hit by an automatic attack seconds away from the finish line, watching three or four racers pass you by, and realizing those last twenty minutes were just flushed down the drain.

And then it gets worse. Even if you get gold trophies on all eight tracks for all four difficulties, you learn that there STILL are things to unlock. This is the first console game to rank your performance beyond just the points. Getting enough points for a gold trophy can still easily earn you a "C" or "D" grade. Even getting first on all tracks is not a guarantee. You'll likely get at least an "A" in this case, but to unlock more features, you need to get BETTER than "A" by getting a one, two, or three "star" grade. That's pretty counter-intuitive already if you didn't play the DS game that apparently introduced this feature, like I didn't. And does the game or instructions actually list how you get these rankings? It does not. And to unlock all the cars and characters, you need to get one star or better on EVERY track, on EVERY difficulty (except the mirror tracks that are technically as hard as the normal highest difficulty.) This casual party game requires you to get first on nearly every one of the hardest tracks of the hardest difficulty in a game that explicitly punishes you for being in first. The auto-hit items won't cost you points, not that you'd know that without gamefaqs' help, but it will still drop you to the back of the pack and penalize you in the rankings for your presence there.

Oh, and that's still not all. Even more can be unlocked in the time trials for each of the 32 tracks. Some just require you to race once and set a time. No problem. But each track also has a "staff ghost" to race against it. To unlock additional stuff, you must beat the "staff ghost" and unlock an "expert staff ghost." But do you unlock the expert by beating the staff ghost? Nope! You have to beat the normal ghost by SEVERAL SECONDS to unlock the expert? How many? The game doesn't say, and it varies for every track. Does the game even indicate these second ghosts exist? Not that I can tell, until you unlock one, and then it doesn't say what unlocking these ghosts does.

Sigh. So, in other words, to unlock everything, you have to spend more time than it takes to usually save the world in an epic RPG. All so your friends won't ask what the deal is with the three question marks in the character select screen. This is BAD GAME DESIGN, Nintendo! Casuals don't care about getting one-star rankings or expert ghosts; they just want to have fun racing with their favorite cartoon plumber's friends. And hard-core players aren't interested in unlocking Bowser Jr. unless he offers a significant game play advantage or change. This really wouldn't have been hard. Super Smash Brothers Brawl had at least three methods of unlocking all of its features; the one player game, through some unusual game play event, or just by playing the game's multi-player features enough. How hard is that? Play online or versus enough, and you can drive as Daisy or whatnot! Or offer an in-game store, letting players cash in their "winnings" for new characters. This current method offers nothing but aggravation.

Despite all this, and believe me it drove me insane for weeks now, the game itself is fun. The new levels are unique enough, and it also offers many old tracks from all five earlier Mario Kart games. Best of all is the new online mode. Now if you're sick of the Grand Prix death march, you can inflict misery on strangers from all over the country. If enough are in a single match, it could be just as frustrating, but at least you're not being graded for it.