"Bots Love Bikes" a Mario Kart Wii thread
 

So I'm kinda surprised there's not a thread for this game up yet. This game seemed to come out with very little fanfare, but by the way they were just flying off the shelf at our store (and mostly by people you'd never peg as gamers!) I figured some of youse guys would be talking about it by now.

ANYWAYS. I've only played like two hours of it and already my opinion is pretty split. Using the Wheel is fun, and a lot more precise that I thought it'd be. I'm still not sure how to do everything (sparks!), and I'm not sure what some of the items do either. This means I'm gonna have to read the instruction booklet, which annoys me slightly.

What annoys me even more, though, is that there appears to be no way to play one on one! Two player vs races are stacked like GP races! Even the battle mode forces you to play with nearly a dozen bots! Maybe there's a way to change this, but I'm not seeing it. All the same, I really hate it. I don't want to race 10 bots every single time outside of time trials...

I also think it's a lot harder to avoid getting hit by stuff in this game. Red shells seem more common (not to mention blue) and green shells never hit my target, but always seem to hit me... Basically, I'm finding this game a lot harder than I ever had in the past. (Though I'll admit, I was never much good at DoubleDash. Come to think of it, I've gotten progressively worse at every Mario Kart entry. I kick everyone's butt on Super Mario Kart, I'm evenly matched at Mario Kart 64, and it gets worse from then on!)

I don't like the way they do the battles in this game at all. I don't find it nearly as fun.

Um, let's see... plus sides... The race courses are really cool, especially the wii-graphics retro ones. Playing Ghost House 2 from SNES and hearing that music was like the highlight of my day. (I still wish they'd bring the feather back as an item!) Motorcycles are pretty cool what with the wheelies, but there's really not that much gameplay difference. Also, the bots--in my game at least--seem to love the bikes. I'd say about 2/3rds of them are on bikes in every race so far.

Haven't done any online play yet, as for some reason the Wii wouldn't connect to my router. Hopefully that'll change soon!

All in all, my least favorite Mario Kart yet. Hopefully more play will improve my impression.

...damn I want a Wii. Bills first, though. *sigh*

...unless...

As to the Wii connectivity, WPA encryption will stop it dead. Not sure if that's your problem, but just a heads-up.

Also: The Wiki article implies that you can turn off the bots in Versus mode. No idea how, but apparently you can, so experimenting is probably a good thing.

Well, it usually connects. It's probably just having a bad day. :rolleyes: O.O I will stop searching until I find out how. (Tomorrow.) EDIT: If someone figures it out in the meantime and wants to tell me, that's cool too.

I played it for about an hour today at school.

It's really fun with four people. My throat is hoarse from all the swearing we did ("Fuck you and your blue shells!" "Oh, I've got three Red Shells, what the fuck now?" :p)... that one XKCD comic could not be more accurate.

I'm recently started maining Wario in SSBB, so I went with him in Mario Kart as well. His bike is great for me. But for the life of me I cannot figure out how to do a wheelie.

So I read the instruction booklet just now. Seems the reason I couldn't do sparks is 'cause I had drifting set on automatic instead of manual. There are ways to change the multiplayer rules/settings, but I'm still not seeing a "No CPU opponents" option. >.< The item thing I didn't get (specifically, the POW block) it seems there isn't any special trick to it.

And Loyal, you pop a wheelie by jerking the Wii-mote as if you were actually doing one, and then back down to finish. You can only do it when you're going airborne, though. (I think. At least, for the karts you can only do tricks mid-air.) If you're using Classic or GC controller, the D-pad does the wheelie. (Up button then down button to end.)

Eh. I played this for an hour and got bored as all hell. Probably gonna return it.

Really just a drab. Nothing new or innovative about this game at all for me. Hell, they reused like 90% of the stages. Very little new shit, nothing really EXCITING about it.

Game has become boring as hell. Needs moar cowbell.

Holy fuck, the new Rainbow Road. I scored 1st in the three races leading up to it and then got twelfth on Rainbow because I kept falling off.

You can do wheelies on the ground, but it just messes you up more than anything.

I can't use the wheel. Especially if I try to get sparks, I'll always turn the wrong way somehow.

Do the bike's sparks ever turn red/orange? I can only get blue sparks on the bikes.

Big question for me: can you play wheel style even if you don't have a wheel? Because I don't want to buy another three copies of MK Wii just to satisfy my whole family.

You can buy separate wheels for about 10 dollars.

But no, the wheel isn't required. Wiimote without nunchuck works as long as you hold it sideways. Classic, gamecube, and nunchuck all work, too.