It's more method and disipline than anything. Not particularly skill-based in-race. Not compared to other kart racing games, including previous titles in the MK series, or even Segas new title.

Blue shell is pretty much the only weapon in the game that can hit the leader. All other items either hit all players or are easily blocked with the banana peels that the leader gets in abundance. People who ask for the blue shell to be removed are basically asking for the leader to be immune to all attacks while the people behind him pound each other to pieces.

And I agree with TWRoO, memorizing the perfect line for every curve is a key element in every racer, so I don't see why MKWii should be singled out for this.

Plenty.  But they won't have any relevance to the genre Mario Kart is in.  I mean, I could mention stuff like Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Dragon Quest VIII, Gradius, Castlevania IV, etc.  But they aren't racing titles...

But even looking at past Mario Kart titles, you could see that the game lent itself to less of what I was talking about.  Its just around the time Mario Kart DS came around that we had the introduction of the ruthless 'rubber band' AI and 'tricks' that lent the gameplay towards 'play perfect or you lose'.  Really, the game shouldn't be so limiting as forcing you to always be jamming down on the boost to the point that if you miss one, its the difference of 1st and 11th place and getting a red turtle shell and a green turtle shell in the second lap is losing the game.

Modnation races as each track would be potentially new to each individual, so it would have nothing to do with route memorisation. Just throwing it out there. 

Indeed, that games idea of creating your own tracks goes a long way to fixing oneof the problems Mario Kart has come up against.  But still I think the fundamental problem Mario Kart has is its basic gameplay lending to two camps.  Its trying to lend to two groups.  The 'casual' gamer, which it obviously does amazingly well as we've seen by its sales, and the 'core' gamer, which it gets mixed results based on the things I mentioned above and we can see based on all the reviews its gotten.

I think a future game in the series, perhaps on a later Nintendo system with custom made maps and DLC could go a long way to improving the game.  But the fundamental problem I think with the game is its dependence on boosts and 'tricks' and etc.  In short, the game has become less about being 'fun' and more about 'beating the time' and 'being perfect'.  I mean, how many people out there do you think really could have unlocked all the racers and cars in Mario Kart Wii?  Probably only 5% or less.  Those requirements, especially for Baby Luigi and some of the last Karts were pretty ridiculous.  And like most online games, trying to 'compete' online now on Mario Kart Wii is a war of attrition even Darwin would argue against.

Damn agree.Nothing more to say

No metion of me? Fail

Lol.... MK64 rubber band is the worst in any racing game I have played barring one (Star-Wars Ep1 pod-racer... though it was still an awesome game despite this) yet you say it was introduced in MK:DS?

What i would like to see is the Mario Kart 64 Blue Shell restored, that's the one element from that game that has gotten worse in subsequent installations, mostly with Double Dash's introduction of the winged shell. With 64's blue shell, there was at least some utility for the 7th-place user, since if numbers 6 and 5 were right in front of him when launched, he actually got an immediate benefit, rather than just helping 2nd, 3rd, or 4th place get a jump on first

The problem with the blue shell isn't so much the burden on the leader, as it's utter lack of usefulness for the user in its current iteration. For the user, it's a spite weapon, basically, and something you fire off quickly just for the chance at getting something else that'll actually help you get ahead.

^Maybe the 64 shell, but with the explosion. If there are two people right next to eachother in the lead, no reason why they shouldn't both get hit!