I miss leagues since they moved it to when I am at school. :(
I actually play it for an hour a day. Wii Wheel only.

OT: I concur. Skills are needed for a true race, and whiners have zero rights. They can play on easy/normal level if they need to. The "casuals" are doing it and they're just fine. :P

but but teh blue shells mean anyone can win! So does the smash ball in brawl. Damn casuals.

But yeah, as has been pointed out many times, the only thing that provides a distinct disadvantage to first player is a blue shell. Lightning effects the earlier players only slightly more than the later ones, pow effects everyone ahead of the user equally (ie not at all, in some cases it actually speeds you up cos you can cut corners over bad terrain). The items are not overly bad. First gets lots of protection items, 2nd gets lots of red and green shells, but has to watch out for 3rd who gets similar. All the good items only occur if you're 7th or worse, and then you're likely to get hit by a bullet from behind so it's not a great position

Also a good example of how it takes skill to win. Every time a hacker spawns infinite blue shells, I end up winning! Just gotta be cheap and sit close behind him with mushrooms/bullet/whatever - the hackers are never any good

I haven't seen many hackers as I haven't played it extensively in about a year, however a couple of the half a dozen I have seen aren't really hacking to win, but rather to be complete dickheads. They only advanced slowly in the game so staying behind them generally meant being in last place.

Of course some hackers try to balance them out... I also ran into someone who had 35000 points, who did do a bit of messing around early on, but didn't for the 2nd half of the race and intentionally stayed in last place, everyone in the race apart from him got about 150-300 points (as I was at about 9500 at the time it is difficult getting more than 40-50 points unless you are in a group full of 9500ers.

This game does take skill... especially if you're against people that know every track in the game by heart. Not to mention short cuts and shit. It's too bad people don't see it the way I do... I think it takes a good amount of skill even though when ur first u get hit by 4 blue shells or more... it's also strategy that counts in a game like this. Sadly I don't have a Wii connection to see how good I am compared to you guys eh? :(

To be good it takes no skill. I am good at it myself just ask my friends when we are all drinking and playing it. To be great at it it takes skill and strategies.

I agree it does involve skill of course but the outcome of the race involves less skill and more chance than other racers. Getting hit by a shell and then a bomb right before the finish line can lose you a place or two when you're in a really close race. That doesn't happen in other racers.

In my experience luck is mostly a factor in singleplayer. In multiplayer the same things affect everyone, so it's more fair. In SP it feels like everyone is out to get the player, and any small mistake results in a loss.

Also have to agree that the old blue shell was better. There's no benefit to firing a blue shell when you're in tenth place.

I'd like to see a return to the older weapon balancing. Where second place is allowed to get a red shell. That would make it a bit more luck based, but a lot more fun.

People seem to think that you generally get the blue shells in 10th-12th place. According to what I've read, this isn't true at all. According to the Gamefaqs guides (which seem quite good, different guides have rather similar stats), you're most likely to get it in 6th place. You can't even get it in 10th place.

Woudl you say someone in 6th place has no use of it?

It depends. Early on in the race while it's still close maybe. But on the final lap things are a bit too spread out for the blue shell to achieve a noticable advantage from 5 spots back.

Then I don't see the harm of it, really. If a blue shell won't get you knocked down further than from 1st to 4th place (at most), why is there so much complaining about it?

I'd much rather play a game where someone close to me in "skill" could beat me, than having me win near every single time.