The biggest addition to the formula here is a trick system which is initiated by flicking your Wii-mote at the apex of a jump ramp to bust out a randomly selected mid-air stunt that earns you a subsequent speed boost when you land. The second is that by using a similar Wii-mote flick, bikes can enter a wheelie state that affords them faster speed, but seriously dodgy steering capabilities. Last but not least; instead of eight competitors on track they’ve bumped it up to twelve, which can make things rather hectic when you factor in the escalation of the Mario Kart weapons stockpile.

While you still have access to the old chestnuts like bananas, red shells, and green shells (triple or single varieties included) you’re now given the likes of proximity mine Bob-ombs, a spiny blue shell that detonates the lead racer and envelopes all nearby frontrunners in the explosion – plus the bullet bill power-up and the pain-in-the-arse blooper ink from Mario Kart DS make return appearances.

New items to the series include a POW block that disarms four people in front of you, a competition stomping Mega Mushroom power-up, and the Thundercloud – which infects other racers with a storm cloud curse that threatens to eventually shrink them (unless they offload it onto some other poor bastard by ‘tagging’ them). It’s a sizeable arsenal to be sure, and these newer weapons definitely come in handy during the cut-throat online mode.

Hooking online into the Nintendo WFC mode you (or you and a buddy playing on the same console) can challenge other like-minded, rabid racers from all across the globe. They give you the option to race against people from your own continent, against your registered Wii friends, or you can take on international opponents (with vastly superior Internet speeds, and cat-like, Japanese reflexes).

Like the single player mode Online Versus races support 12 players, plus there is a Battle mode with a ‘coin runner’ variant available which divides you all up into two teams. With our modest broadband connection we experienced zero-to-no difficulties with the continental races, and to be perfectly honest, we were having so much fun we never needed to venture into the worldwide option.

While the online racing doesn’t skip a beat, we do have to call shenanigans on the Battlemode – the fact that it is only a team vs. team affair ruins the traditional free-for-all nature of it all. Also, setting up a race and communicating with your buddies isn’t as intuitive as it could be. With the Wii console having no support for headsets, your game room banter is limited to 70 odd ‘Nintendo pre-approved’ dorky text messages like “long time no see!”, “this isn’t over yet!”, “Grrr! No fair!”, “You’re all so fast!”, “I’m going to use my Wii Wheel!” – so for those of you hoping to blast your opponents with choice comments about their mothers promiscuity, their body odour, and/or some bizarre sexual habit accusations – you’re going to be bitterly disappointed, like us.

The online hookup is also used by a dedicated Mario Kart Channel which let’s you humble the hell out of yourself by comparing your times against the current course records of each and every track. If you’re really down for some masochism you can even download the ghost laps of the greats and spend a fruitless hour or two attempting to beat them. The Mario Kart Channel also tracks a plethora of various other statistics like hours playing the game, kilometres raced, wins, losses, WiiWheel usage, favourite character, and how many times you’ve screamed abuse at the TV for getting beaten in the last one metre stretch of a race – y’know, all the important statistics…

All said and done, we think that Mario Kart Wii is easily one the top three games on the system. In terms of longevity, you can spend hours and hours attempting to either ‘three star’ perfect every course, best the Nintendo Staff time trials and ghost times, or unlock the various characters and courses. In addition to this you have limitless hours of fun ahead of you for multiplaying friends and random victims in epic online races and battles. Failing an internet connection you can always just kick it old school by having yourself a suitably hilarious local 4 player bash.

At a glance the game looks like a light-hearted, braindead affair but in reality it is brimming with strategic nuance with a huge range of techniques available to secure you the win; like Rocket starts, Drifts, Mini turbos, Super mini turbos, tricks, wheelies - not to mention the various offensive & defensive weapon strategies, and secret track short cuts.

Although Mario Kart Wii has been made approachable for the ‘casuals’, expert players who can make use of every boost opportunity and cunning trick will have themselves a significant edge – which is how it should be, really. We’re not going to enter into the whole “is the best Mario Kart game ever” debate (we’ll leave that to angrier online individuals) but what we will say is this: Mario Kart Wii is a fast and furious addition to this hallowed Nintendo series with something for every taste. If you own a Wii you need to have a copy of this bad boy idling in your garage.