What you didn't know about Mario Kart Wii

Today, the Mario Kart Wii volcano has erupted,spewing forth screenshotsand details like there's no tomorrow. With the game's European April 11 release date looming, we were looking anxiously at our watches. But the panic isover - it's looking great.

Theplethora of screensshow a lot of in-game racing and there are some familiar tracks in there, including Ghost Valley and Mario Circuit from the SNES version, a glimpse of Peach's castle, plus a welcome return for the penguins of Super Mario 64.


Above: Amazing how a 3D version of a 2D track can be so faithful, eh?

The screens also show off the Mii integration and, if our limited knowledge of

Japanese is correct, a 'Champion Ghost' mode too (pictured here).This is a time attack mode on the new Mario Kart channel which will launch alongside the game and sit on your Wii Menu screen, offering access to rankings and online races.

As promised, the game will come packaged with the Wii Wheel - a plastic peripheral for your Wii-mote to slot into, but you'll also be able to use a Classic Controller, GameCube pad, standalone Wii-mote or Wii-mote/Nunchuk combination to control the game. That's everyone catered for, then.


Above: Moo Moo Ranch returns. Are we overdosing on cute here?

Justin Towell

Justin was a GamesRadar staffer for 10 years but is now a freelancer, musician and videographer. He's big on retro, Sega and racing games (especially retro Sega racing games) and currently also writes for Play Magazine, Traxion.gg, PC Gamer and TopTenReviews, as well as running his own YouTube channel. Having learned to love all platforms equally after Sega left the hardware industry (sniff), his favourite games include Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams, Zelda BotW, Sea of Thieves, Sega Rally Championship and Treasure Island Dizzy.