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CAL4M1TY on 27 April 2008
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In answer to OP:

I'd say because Mario Kart Wii hasn't kept the standard of Nintendo's other 1st party games, where by they changed certain aspects to be more casual friendly but also didn't alienate the core gamers.

Mario Kart Wii kind of missed the target because of the new way to drift (simply holding down the B-trigger on the wii-mote and holding your line). It makes it easier for the casual market, but it eliminated alot of the challenges of mastering snaking around each course.

Another issue I have with the game is the unbalanced nature of the weapons, you could literally be miles ahead in first place, only to be hit by a succession of weapons and end up finishing 5th, even though your skill level indicates you should have finished 1st. It's quite frustrating being first place then being hit by the blue shell, the lighting cloud, the lightning, the Pow box, the squid and a few more other items, which ends up putting you in 6th place in the last half of the final lap.

All the more frustrating when you play competitively, on my first outing of online (I hadn't read the manual about the revised drift mechanic) so I didn't snake/drift at all in the race, I was coming 10th, only to have a string of lucky items which put me into 2nd place. My skill at the time obviously didn't warrant me getting 2nd, but the unbalanced nature of the game means Luck is almost always > skill.

There are a few more issues (i.e cheapshot AI in single player), but I haven't played enough of the game to notice yet.

80%+ certainly doesn't make it a bad game with bad reviews. In comparison to Nintendo's other releases it looks to be the "worse" but that's not really fair considering the quality of Nint's 1st party releases.

@scorptile: Your comment isn't exactly fair to GTA4, considering that it's just peoples opinions on a game they most likely have yet to play. The opposite could be said about a lot more gamers, that GTA4 is the must buy and Mario Kart Wii is just Mario Kart DS with better graphics.