Well, yeah. We even ended up getting an actual Wii Wheel controller shell. But as good as some motion-sensing racers have been, several others have made terrible use of that same functionality -- there have been some truly poor racers to arrive these past few years alongside the major hits.
So we're here to sort the good from the bad in the Wii's racing genre today -- awarding Cheers to five of the games we consider as being tops in the genre right now on the system, and shedding some Tears for five others that are best left down in the bottom of the barrel where they belong. Join us, won't you? It's Cheers & Tears: Wii Racing Games.
Click here to leap directly to some of the Wii's worst on Page 2.
Available on Day 1 of the Wii's launch back in 2006, Need for Speed Carbon was the early adopters' solution for getting their serious racing fix. It wasn't an absolutely spectacular title, as, after all, it was a Day 1 Wii game. But, surprisingly, it was an incredibly solid and strong companion to the same title's cousins released on others consoles -- an excellent, timely achievement by developer Black Box and publisher Electronic Arts that we're still appreciating today.
In fact, the capable job done with Carbon has only helped to elevate our hopes for the next installment in the Need for Speed series coming to Wii -- Need for Speed Nitro. With three more years to learn the particular ins and outs of the Wii hardware and pulling together a Nintendo-specific new graphic style to compliment the high-octane gameplay, this series is one that could be looked back upon at the end of the Wii's life cycle as having offered the best realistic racing on the system. (Well, realistic when compared to what's coming up in these next four picks.)
Also available on store shelves that very first day in November '06, Excite Truck was Nintendo's "other" first-party launch title (aside from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and the pack-in Wii Sports). Smart gamers didn't let themselves get too distracted by Link's latest adventure or making their Miis play tennis, though, because Excite Truck was in-your-face, over-the-top racing action that featured some of the craziest environments and biggest jumps ever seen in a Nintendo title.
The game revived the Excite branding, first seen with Excitebike and Excitebike 64. And, like those games, it rewarded players for keeping their cool and keeping their vehicles rolling level even after launching off of massive, rolling hills -- even though those vehicles were now monster trucks instead of motocross dirtbikes. Excite Truck also let the developers at Monster Games get their feet wet working on the Wii hardware, which was important. Because it gave them the experience needed to create the next Cheer-earning game on our list.
Flipping giant robot frogs spinning through the sky. Rolling cyborg turtles playing poker, and kicking soccer balls around. Some kind of football, slot machine, virtual grasshopper thing. All of this sounds exactly like what you'd expect to see in the follow-up to Excite Truck.
Well, maybe not. But if anyone was skeptical at the wild new direction being taken with the series when Excitebots was surprise announced earlier this year for an even more surprising only-two-months-later release date, their skepticism has since been silenced by the sheer entertainment of it all. Excitebots: Trick Racing makes no sense at all, and that's a good thing -- its combination of high-speed racing with ludicrously huge jumps, mashed-in mini-games and animal robots all come together to create what is, undoubtedly, the most unique racer on Wii. It's certainly worth Cheering for, and it's a game that you need to go back and grab if you missed it this past Spring.
Now, once you turn the page here, you'll find plenty of sad and sorry Mario Kart clones to cry about -- but NASCAR Kart Racing, interestingly, is not one of them. Though we certainly expected a game with this concept and brand to be a quick, cheap cash-in (since there are so many of those elsewhere on Wii), EA's take on adapting the NASCAR license for the Wii audience is a really solid one.
You'll be getting some silliness with the overload of in-game advertising, as everything from Aflac insurance to The Home Depot is plastered across nearly every texture-capable surface in the game -- there's even a power-up that lets you attack opponents by covering their screen with a giant ad. But getting past the commercialism overload, the underlying game is rock solid. Smooth, easy to control and supporting every possible controller configuration on Wii (Remote, Remote and 'Chuck, Classic, Cube, et cetera), NASCAR Kart Racing is a pleasant surprise and pleasant alternative for those gamers who've perhaps had enough of Mario's Mushroom Kingdom races and want to head to the South for a spell instead.
And last, of course, is Mario Kart. Nintendo's main mascot's spin-off racing series started strong on the Super Nintendo years ago, and its subsequent installments on nearly every piece of Nintendo hardware since then have kept the tradition of excellence alive. Mario Kart Wii's no exception, as while it may not be the strongest individual game in the series so far it's still incredibly engrossing and a great multiplayer experience.
Mario Kart Wii also served as the launching pad for the Wii Wheel, which, while really nothing more than a simple plastic shell to place the Wii Remote inside, has still made a major impact on the Wii's expanded audience -- it's just easier to understand a racer when you've got a wheel in your hands, twisting and turning back and forth. Not all of Mario Kart Wii's vehicles have wheels, though -- as this is the game that also introduced motorcycles into the mix. So even if you played this one completely traditionally with a GameCube pad, there were still new little touches like that to appreciate.
You can almost always bet the farm on a first-party Nintendo release, as the Big N rarely steers its audience wrong with the games coming directly out of its own development houses. That said, though, the excellence of Mario Kart Wii is unfortunately counter-punched by this watered-down, lost-potential GameCube port-over -- Donkey Kong Barrel Blast.
Once upon a time, this game had us excited. A follow-up to the excellent Donkey Konga rhythm games and intriguing platformer Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, it was set to employ the GameCube's unique Bongo Controller to control DK's movements, flying through the air. Tap left, he steers left. Right, right. We were looking forward to the drumming. Because of an unfortunate bit of timing, though, Barrel Blast got lost in the hardware transition time between the Cube and the Wii. Some games made it out of that limbo alive, like Super Paper Mario. But DK just tumbled out of the sky. When this game shipped with its Bongo support removed and a horrid Remote and Nunchuck configuration taking its place, well . . . Donkey Kong himself is still crying about it, with no amount of bananas helping to ease his sorrow.
If you flip back over to the last page and take a look at the boxart for NASCAR Kart Racing again, you'll see some M&M's branding on a car there -- representing, of course, the M&M's NASCAR car, in Kart form, on Wii. If you absolutely must experience the exhiliration of kart racing on Wii alongside the visual flavor of these classic chocolate candies with the crunchy, colorful shells, do it there. Not here. Anywhere but here.
M&M's Kart Racing is an abomination, one of the worst racing games on Wii -- and I should know, because I'm the one who's been forced to review nearly all of them. This one was clearly intended to be a by-the-numbers clone of Mario Kart with the happy-go-lucky sentient snacks headlining as the drivers behind the wheel, but it any potential for fun melts away after just a few seconds. It's boring driving with no items to pick up, and no way to attack your opponents. Its track designs are cramped and claustrophobic, making it ridiculously difficult to make even simple turns. And for being a game that's trying to clone Mario Kart, it misses the mark in multiplayer by only allowing two players, max. I guess they tried to do four and it crashed the one dusty devkit they had to throw this one together.
And then we come to the Data Design Interactive portion of our broadcast, which -- spoiler warning -- will carry us through to the end. There's just no beating DDI for horrible racers on Wii, especially when you discover that they're all essentially the same game. Seriously -- the same engine, interface, handling, all that. Used again and again, for tons of different titles. Just given slightly different coats of paint each time.
Myth Makers: Super Kart GP is probably the least offensive of the group, which is why it earned itself the relatively high mark of 3.5 out of 10 in its review. But even with the redeeming factors of some fairly accessible mascots in place, it still bombs out. There's no way anyone's going to be mistaking this for Mario when the camera starts glitching out (as it often does) or when the collision detection fails to register that you've actually hit an obstacle or rival racer (another common occurrence). Myth Makers' take on Data Design's cloned kart formula might be the best of the worst, but even that's still really bad.
Sadistically, I still kind of want to go back and play Rig Racer 1 -- I have a perverse desire to find out just how in the world it was anywhere near worth having a sequel made, and if it was just as much a piece of utter gutter trash as this sequel turned out to be. Rig Racer 2 is a game in which you race semi trucks around tracks that are absolutely not intended for semi trucks. This game, quite literally, just takes the tracks from some other racer and replaces the cars used there with big rigs. Without compensating for their much larger size, or slower handling, or anything. Horrible.
Data Design lowered their own bar with this one, folks, especially after encountering its unique glitches and programming errors. Because it was impossible to have fun playing it the normal way, I spun my truck around and took off going the wrong way around the track while reviewing it. Then, after completing a lap, I found that it actually registered the lap. Seriously -- you can just do each race in reverse, running headfirst into all the other guys, and there's no penalty for playing that way. (If that makes you at all want to consider trying the game though, please don't. It's in no way redeeming. Nothing in this game is.)
And, finally, the worst game ever made for the Wii. Not just the worst racing game, mind you, but the worst game period -- I was honored and privileged to award Action Girlz Racing the lowest rating I've ever given any game when I reviewed this preposterous excuse for a legitimate product earlier this year, because it really, really earned it.
You can drive straight through walls. The tracks are filled with dead ends, which is already an abysmal design decision. But then, if you hit a dead end, there's a good chance that there will be no collision detection at all -- you just fly through the barrier and end up in a glitched-out, polygon limbo underneath the actual stage. And that's just one aspect of the almost comically terrible gameplay that plagues this one -- I'm surprised the save data file registered on my Wii when I played this one didn't corrupt the rest of my data, like some kind of Wii virus. I'm afraid my Miis have contracted virtual venereal diseases as a result of coming into contact with it.
Just to be safe, I downloaded Dr. Mario.
And there you have it, Wii fans. Five of the best racing games you can play on the Wii, and five games that are not only some of the worst racers on the system but, I'd argue, some of the worst games to ever be released for any Nintendo system. Ever. Please steer well clear of the Tears picks, stick to the Cheers picks, and don't drink while you're behind the Wii Wheel.