Mario Kart Wii 12-player online, wheelies set to arrive in April
Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 1:33pm by Jack
We’ve touched upon the new and improved Wii-ified version of Mario Kart here at Infendo in the past, and today I’m going to start touching things again. All while doing wheelies and various Mountain Dew fueled extreme to the max X-Games tricks.
First, some things have changed in Mario Kart Wii. Now it’s 12-player online, which is four less than what we knew a few months ago. Still, 12 is more than enough for a free system, even if it does mean we’ll be entering a gabazillion numbers to play against 12 friends.
Second, there’s a nice little rumor going around today that this title drops in Japan sometime in the rainy month of April. But wait, there’s more: The game will also feature personalized Mii racers. GET?
Nintendo Wii Fanboy:
Mario Kart Wii will also have GameCube controller support, multiplayer for up to twelve people online, online leagues, global rankings, time attack sharing/rankings, ghost uploads/downloads, and 32 different courses — 16 of which are new, the remaining 16 being classic tracks. We’re sure we spotted Delfino Square in at least one of the screens! You can have a look at the scanned pages yourself after the post break. The first one of you to identify the figure drifting past Luigi on the top left of the first page wins a cookie.*
I suppose since that leaves a month between Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Kart Wii people will start to cart out the “Nintendo Drought” argument sometime in late March, right?
February 6th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
The Mii inclusion sounds cool, but what will define the characteristics of my racer, ie the stats for acceleration, weight and such? will it be a points system as we have seen in many other character create modes?
a better idea, i think, would be to allow me to put my Mii head on one of the established racers. then strangers racing me online would know they was up against yoshi, being played by someone wearing glasses.
February 6th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
2008 will be huge for Nintendo with this game, Brawl, Wii Fit, and Wii music. Now they just need to release Disaster, and announce a new Zelda, Starfox and Kid Icarus Total Nintendomination
February 6th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
I doubt we see this game in the U.S. before September. Delays are inevitable. This is a Nintendo product after all.
February 6th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
@ Scott Clements:
Weren’t the racer stats attached to the vehicle, rather than the driver? Each driver was limited to specific vehicles, of course, but I suppose the Miis will have their own exclusive vehicles with their own stats, right? Speculate, speculate…
February 6th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
If it was really coming out in April, (even in Japan), there would be much more promo material by now. Think about it, that’s only 2 months away.
I say Q4 title in the US. Sad but true.
February 6th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Strange how there really hasn’t been much publicity at all. I agree with the above post in that a delay seems inevitable, but even so - with such bold details (however scarce they may be), why do have so few screens and videos to look at? Honestly, even when Galaxy and Brawl were still somewhat “under wraps,” we still had tons of behind-the-scenes footage. I’ve seen maybe 2 videos of this game, and both were 30-second clips that didn’t show much.
I’m confused -
AND, I can’t play Excite Truck to save my life (NOT a fan of the controls, though for most people they do work well), so if Mario Kart doesn’t have a GC or Classic control option, I’m going to be pretty pissed.
February 6th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
I love Mario Kart, and I feel this one is going to be awesome (except for the cheesy mid-air tricks). The inclusion of motorcycles will forever change the series. But I don’t feel there is enough info about the game right now so I doubt that it will be released even in the next four or five months knowing Nintendo
February 6th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
I like how they’re having the classic tracks like in MK:DS, I’ll be interested to see how any of the ds tracks look with the extra horsepower. And 12 player onlie is still great. 4 just wasn’t enough on ds it always felt kinda empty, even before everyone started dropping out.
February 6th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
12 player online racing. 16 player online battle mode.
Also, GC controller support is semi-confirmed.
http://gonintendo.com/wp-content/photos/Cubeper.jpg
You can see a Green and Red button on the Online screen.
February 6th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
The reports of a channel being added to the home menu is what gets me going. The hope is that this will let me know if my friends are playing, what ghost data is available and the leader boards without having to boot the game. Then with enough feedback maybe Ninty will just add such a channel that does this for all their online games not just a single game.
February 9th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
April sounds a bit aggressive. Maybe end of summer based on the details currently available.
February 13th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I can’t wait to see someone ride by with a Micheal Jackson Mii.