With a long list of predecessors, the Mario Kart franchise has long been one of Nintendo’s most popular multiplayer focused games. Dating back to the Super Nintendo and Original Release days, the franchise has always been a staple because of its simple mix of racing and revered characters from the Nintendo universe. As 2011 winds down, Nintendo prepares to release its next installment in the series with Mario Kart 7. With a strong focus in online play, tracks and customization, expect Mario Kart 7 to be one of the premier Nintendo 3DS games of the year, as well as a popular holiday gift.

Within the actual game play of Mario Kart 7, it’s clear that the developers have given a supreme amount of focus to deepening the online portion of the game. Nintendo has seemingly put more effort than all previous occasions into the online availability of MK7.

One of the primary features of the online video game play for MK7 will be the community mode for users. Gamers will have the ability to dream up their own racing groups, as well as an availability to define the characteristics of each community. Among the characteristics that can be chosen within these communities are skill settings, items and racing rules. Individual communities can have about 10,000 members. Of course, races won’t be able to have that many participants at once, but the groups should be rather interesting.

Another one of the new online features will be the availability to race against players from around the world. The world feature will allow the opportunity to go up against gamers from around the world who have similar levels of skill. The online features will also include a friends option, as well as a local game mode. In this category, users can take part in standard game play against other players who are playing the same area.

There will be a great combination of classic tracks, as well as brand new track experiences for long time MK players. There will be 16 new tracks for this installment, as well as 16 classic designs. Some of the preview trailers have shown new tracks such as an underwater course.

The characters will also add in some new blood along with the mainstays of the Mario Kart franchise. The classic figures such as Mario, Luigi, Yoshi and others will be included, along with a list of almost 10 unlocked characters for use. Gamers will also be available to use the 3DS Mii creator device to play as a number of other popular characters or as themselves.

The itemization and power features have always been a popular mainstay of the MK franchise and Mario Kart 7 continues that tradition. There are all the classic items, as well as a couple new additions such as a Lucky 7, which allows drivers to choose from seven different items including shells and bananas.

Mario Kart 7 will certainly have a number of other great features such as new availability for cart customization and power ups as well. With heavy attention on the online play specs and a devoted group of longtime MK players, expect MK7 to be a strong release for Nintendo this winter. The company seems to finally be putting more attention in online play, which is encouraging for future games and franchises under the Nintendo umbrella.

Super Mario Galaxy 2, yet another Wii-exclusive by Nintendo, expands the trend set by its predecessor, Super Mario Galaxy, which was received with great praise from the gaming community when it came out several years ago. Back then, Nintendo stated that SMG is more or less a “test bed” for this type of gameplay, and if the responses the title received are to be of any indication, we’d say the experiment was very successful.

Gameplay

A large portion of the gameplay from the previous title remains, while you’ll also find plenty of additions to keep your interest high at all times. You’ll once again find yourself exploring planets in a completely 3D environment, though this time they’ve been noticeably reduced in size – which allows you to traverse between separate planets more frequently. Some parts of the game will return you to the style of the classic Super Mario titles, shifting the game to a 2D perspective for a brief period of time while you get to the end of the level.

Yoshi, your trusted dinosaur companion, returns as well, and he’s packed with some new and fresh abilities, such as using his tongue as a swinging rope, inflating himself, as well as some skills returning from previous games like the ability to swallow your enemies. On a larger scale, you’ll use a map system for moving around the game’s world, and those of you who’ve played the more recent Super Mario titles will probably find it familiar to the ones used in, for example, Super Mario Bros Wii. Much like in SMBW too, you can make use of a “helper” feature which shows you the way for completing a level if you find yourself stuck on it for too long.

Graphics and System Requirements

Even though the Wii is widely known for its limited hardware capabilities, this sure didn’t stop the developers of SMG2 from creating intricate and appealing worlds, with lots of colorful elements and nicely-blending environments. Each planet will offer you a unique visual experience, and you’ll be able to easily recognize where you’re currently located in the game’s world by using your environment as a navigation. Of course, some of the Wii’s limitations still manage to come through despite all the developers’ efforts, as for example the game is quite lacking in its lighting effects in some areas.

Being a Wii-exclusive title, you should expect top notch performance from SMG2 – and anyway, even if it wasn’t developed for the Wii only, it’s still not a game you’d expect to drag your machine down, looking at its visuals.

Other

Special attention has been paid to the game’s music, which is a very well-written and performed orchestral score, which captivates the feeling of all the levels perfectly. We were especially impressed by the actual variety of the tracks, as the game offers a huge amount of music to play as you’re going through its levels.

Conclusion

Even if you haven’t played a Super Mario game before (which would be quite odd, really), you should still find yourself immediately interested in SMG2 as soon as you’ve seen just a little of its gameplay – because this game is obviously made with quality in mind.

Many of us grew up with the exploits of Mario and Luigi, controlling them with a joystick in our hands. The series’ popularity is phenomenal, and even non-gamers can easily recognize the characters nowadays. The newest game in the franchise, Super Mario Bros Wii brings you many new levels, an even more colorful art style, and solid gameplay that will keep you mashing your joystick to no end.

Gameplay

Since the game is for the Wii, you can expect to use the Wii controller for playing, though it’s not required to move it around – you can simply play with the buttons. Though we have to admit, using the motion controller option makes the game a much more interesting experience in some ways.

The levels’ difficulty varies, with the initial ones designed to be accessible even to newcomers to the series (and platformer games in general), while some of the later levels will make even experienced players cry in despair as they lose yet another life trying to pass through.

Luckily, the game includes the “Super Guide” feature familiar from some of the series’ more recent titles. If you fail to complete a level a given consecutive number of times, you’ll see an animation of Luigi coming to help you by showing where exactly you need to go to make it through.

You can cancel this animation at any time (if you only needed help for some particular part of the level), or you can let it play to the end where you’ll be asked if you want to skip the level altogether. This isn’t a complete solution for those of you who’re stuck though, as the Super Guide won’t show you how to get some of the bonus power-ups, such as the Star.

Graphics and System Requirements

NSMBW is noticeably more vibrant and stylized than its predecessor. The game now uses a mixture of 2D and 3D graphics – while the levels and environments are entirely 2D, the characters are 3D models which gives some sense of depth to the whole scene.

You may be worried that moving to 3D models as opposed to the pre-rendered 2D sprite cards from the previous games will degrade the graphics quality (as is common in these cases), but you’d be wrong – the new Mario and Luigi look true to their originals, despite being comprised of polygons instead of pixels now (figuratively speaking).

The Wii handles the graphics quite nicely of course, as there isn’t anything heavy to render in particular. Character movement is smooth and hassle-free, and the game features some impressively short loading times on top of all.

Other

If you get tired of mastering the levels by yourself and want to enjoy the game with a friend, you can do that very easily thanks to the included co-op mode. It introduces some differences to the gameplay though, mainly in the way respawning is handled – but remember, twice the players – twice the fun!

Conclusion

Certainly a peak in the development of Mario games, New Super Mario Bros Wii is the perfect title to spend those boring evenings with.