So what is there really to say about this title, hmm?  Plugging this disc into your system is going to be something that you've become accustomed to even before you knew there was going to be a Mario Kart release on the Wii.  What Nintendo does in this repetitious dinosaur classic series is shovel baby food into your already adult mouth.  You've tasted this stuff before, by now it has lost its appetizing zest, and just really, it no longer satisfies.  Not even the nutrients have quite hit the target correctly.  Mario Kart Wii is your Gerber baby food for a teenager's diet - it doesn't fit and frankly could use some new tricks.  As I "played" this game (I put played in quotation marks because I usually ended up spending more time extending my vocabulary of euphemisms while playing rather than actually improving my driving), it felt more and more like part of the Tony Hawk series.  You know how the Tony Hawk series started off and came to an adolescent age with credible content, spunky music, a pool-side party fiesta of pick-me-up fun?  It was something worth a buck and delivered on that buck, stroking no false ambitions of unnecessary story, graphics, or paramount presentation.  No, it delivered quite rightly on its price tag of innocent, one night stand bliss.  It filled that spot on the hardcore gamers’ shelf that was reserved for the casual titles.  It was the elective bounce that could be called upon in-between roleplaying crawls and intensive headshots.  The supportive relief task force, if you will.  However, a recession smashed into the series.  Each release seemed more repetitive than the last, reusing gameplay goals like rinse cycling laundry four times.  Every new level lost legitimacy, inserting more interactive NPC gags and plugging various motorized vehicle alternatives (scooters, bikes, cars...).  Everything became cheapened.  Everything became formulaically washed with silly whistles and gizmos...  That isn't exactly what a person pays money for.  They pay for innovation, presentation, a game with some dignity, and most of all, fun.  A series stuck like a one-trick pony on their crutches of past success is bound to lose appeal sometime or another, and it seems that, just like our previously mentioned Tony Hawk lineup, Mario Kart may have hit a progressive standstill.  The series' best of fans will most likely find their newest addition of competitive track racing, weapon boxes of whirligigs, and bloody knuckles brawls in Battle a product that is going too commercial.  Too much is being cranked out on the creative assembly line too quickly and we get Ronald McDonald’s new concoction - a product of a conglomerate mastermind that slaps "Mc" onto the front of each new release, but really only ever changes the sogginess of his fries.  Yet, just like with the McHappy gang, Mario Kart will remain a staple franchise with dedicated publicity and fans.  It can't be helped.  However, with time and patience, perhaps the series can once again be livened, lifted, given a leg up, and loosed onto fans with something other than vanilla tricks and fast-food illegitimacy; it's simply not with this go-around.

          Have you seen the movie Juno?  After a half-dozen tracks raced in Mario Kart it feels like you're sitting Juno down for a "birds and the bees" talk.  Your disclaimer is too late and is probably inconsequential and redundant at this point.  Mario Kart Wii features a pocketful of narcotic courses for you to choose from - they're fun the first couple times you try them but soon enough you're feeling less enthusiastic.  The regimented setup lives to this day of the ole Mushroom, Flower, Star, and Special cups (and so forth) and are unlockable through practice makes perfect racing routines.  Some of them, yes, do appeal with seasonal jaunts through leaves, sun, flowers, and snow.  Others choose different routes of off-handed satisfaction, whether through jig melodies playing in the background, the level of cutthroat maneuvering involved, or simply how bright and chipper the level's persona seems.  Now please don't take the initial negativity the wrong direction; Mario Kart Wii has plenty to offer those new to the franchise, especially in the characters' likeability and presentation's cotton candy flavor and hues (it is a true Nintendo creation in its color palette), however these are both expected and done-that's of the series for veteran players.  Everyone expects there to be pastel Seuss colors painting the screen during every race, everyone has predetermined the bubblegum flavor that has become Mario Kart's signature Wonka recipe over the past years, everyone anticipates blazing over courses at speeds quick enough to lose your lunch and the color in your face, and nobody realistically could deprive Nintendo of this entitlement after a monarchy of sugar-coated racing.  We can at least gratify our sovereign game developers with our respect of perseverance - they have been persistent and consistent, at least.  By now those who are still purchasing Mario Kart games are probably knowledgeable of their single battle tactic of using a familiar sales strategy.  In this case, instead of hoisting the same reliable sword toward a foe to yet again vanquish blights and snuff evil, Nintendo rears reliable content to satisfy franchise newcomers and provides a racing medium for all consoles.  It is a standby, like jeans and the pea coat.  I've simply grown tired of denim and bundling.  Give us summer apparel, please.

          To be honest there truly isn't enough new content to justify a full-length review.  If this read seems monotonous - lacking variety or appeal - that simply means it’s doing its job perfectly.  Reviews are meant to reflect their client games; Mario Kart Wii's game innards radiate the same redundancy this article does.  A lot of the same gameplay stunts we've seen before and honestly ("For the love of Pete...") past exuberances over past triumphs (when switching driver and attacker was nifty, when snaking became the cool kid, when the battle matches were still relatively unexplored/gnarly, when carts become unlockably rad like Pokemon cards) are now trivial and dead.  This brings us to our next couple "points," though they may seem disposably diminutive inkling quips.  These deal with misplaced fain in electronics.  You get to snuggle up with the nunchuck and Wiimote like your daughter would with her My Little Pony dolls to begin with.  They give you comfort when you blast open that game box with unbridled delight caterwauling across the room in verbalization.  Yes yes, we know it seems like it'll be something to scribble a letter home to Mumsy about - sweeping across lanes, fenders, and dignities with the tilt of a game controller - however this unchecked innocence-in-high-hopes has a short battery life.  You heard me.  That white gyroscopic controller you’re kissing isn’t a holy prophet.  It won’t deliver you to eternal sunshiney bliss.  This criticism isn’t the apocalypse and yesiree, the Wii's motion sensitive confection is getting the reprimanding boot for once.  It simply doesn't perform like a Bessie should.  We have been graced with a tool (Wiimote) that dispenses nutritious joy (motion sensing), it has proven hardy and convenient in the past, providing for our bodies’ nature (intuitive controls) - why can't we, in our time of utmost need and desire, milk this gameplay cow for what it's worth then?  Let's focus on the controller's actual features for clarification.

          Mario Kart Wii offers direct control over your character's cart using the Wiimote as the steering wheel.  To use the controller in this position you hold it sideways with both hands and tilt the controller to turn your kart left and right, respectively.  While launching off of various jumps, inclines, quarter-pipes, and general lumps in the road you are able to shake the Wiimote to perform a simple trick for a temporary speed boost (similar to skid-boosting).  Now nothing inherently inadequate arises with this control scheme other than the occasional turn in the opposite direction because you overzealously twist the Wiimote, but otherwise it operates exactly as predicted.  The fault lies in a couple background gripes.  Turning with the Wiimote is stubbornly difficult to master because of its subtle inconsistencies in controller-to-character turning proportions.  At times the slightest hint of a nudge of a peck of a nick of a brush of a breeze on the controller sends your character careening off into Rainbow Road's vacuum abyss or DK Mountain's cliffside dropoff.  You faceplant and snog any environmental grandmother’s attack-like inconvenience available.  Steering becomes the most bothersome of gameplay hangnails that you can't simply use your sense and surety and snip off for player ease-of-use.  Players will find venturing onto Mario Kart's tracks with their white steering wheel wand a break in their patience.  However, matters worsen.  This mild nuisance that inevitably turns into a nauseating severity is coupled with an opposite.  When the time comes to make sharp turns in the game, this can never be achieved.  No amount of Twister and Thumbwars interbreeding can bear a child of whipping around a corner.  This is what constitutes such melodramatic steering (oversteering three-hundred sixty degrees and the cursing the follows).  With time these shortcomings can be managed, however their presence simply infuriates with frequency.  What is more is the hands-on functional interaction of motion-sensitive movement adds little to the game's feel, if at all or not taking from it.  Countless times I caught myself inching back toward the Gamecube controller with a luster's eye on its curvaceous impressions, its "fondle me" perfect marriage of form and function.  However, this urge had to be suppressed, for you cannot accurately assess a game using last-gen equipment.  What a pity that is, too, for the attachable steering wheel add-on did nothing to compliment either.  A sad day for usability, I’m afraid.  The setup’s final grade?  I’ll give it a C+ for missing the delivery on its intentions, but a B- for the actual capabilities, disregarding the potential that produced intuitive stagnancy.

          Other factors to consider shall always remain.  Some that shall remain unmentioned are playable characters (the same as always), the difference between the racing karts and motorbikes (there seem to be next to none), and all the groovy new items introduced (you don’t have to know how to count to add those up…).  It saddens me having to write this, but truly underneath the husk of traditional hype, behind the unavoidable application of faith to Mario Kart’s track record, and within our outward mask of material humility, the core of tragic disappointment resides.  It’s one of those things we don’t talk about too much in public because Mario Kart has been a fond companion in the past.  Who truly wishes to whap their favorite pet with the sting of “You disappoint me?”  Not I.  Yet, these things must be hesitantly digested and regurgitated into the gaming community so all can see how insufficient the product-meal was.  In all, it isn’t the sum of all the game’s parts that equals a sobering flop, but the potential beast-of-a-product it could have been, yet wasn’t.  My advice says wait out Nintendo’s current siege on the veteran gamers’ endeavors and snag the newest Mario Kart ported to the next new console (assuming they change it up this next time around).  Cling to Double Dash and your DS edition, they actually satisfy.