Today I swung by a local HMV over my lunch hour in order to pick up, well, you know, one of the biggest games of the year. Mario Kart Wii, of course.

It’s a lot more like the DS version than other recent ones, which is a good thing, and there’s a good mix of new tracks and classic ones from the older games. It still retains the terribly unfair blue shell though, which often knocks you right out of first place with no chance of blocking it, making races a bit more random than just a pure test of racing skill.

It comes with a wheel, which is really just a plastic shell in which you place the regular controller, but I’ve found it a bit awkward to use compared to the superior nunchuk+controller combo. You do get a special bragging-rights reward for using the wheel though, in the form of a golden icon showing that you’re beating others while using a wheel in online races, but I’m not too worried about that.

So far I’ve done the first three 50cc cups, and the new tracks are pretty good overall, with only the ‘maple’ one standing out as being a bit annoying with a lot of extreme twists that make it easier to fall off. I also did the first cup in the 100cc class, where you use bikes instead of karts, but the handling isn’t really that much different.

I didn’t get a chance to try the online mode, since the servers are apparently taking a bit of a beating right now. Online support has been a weak point of the Wii so far though, and it still uses the silly friend code system and lacks any form of communication between players. The leaderboards are interesting, though; instead of just a ranking list, it shows a cluster of players along a lap time axis and places you on it, for a graph-style comparison. You can also filter it to compare yourself just against other players in your region, as well as worldwide and just against your friends list.

Oh and I’ll probably get around to that Grand Theft Auto 4 thing at some point, too.