ot many franchises out there are capable of getting by on the same old schtick. Even fewer maintain their relevance and entertainment value through the years despite never making major changes. Mario Kart, however, somehow manages to entrance gamers anew with every release – and this Wii entry is no exception. Losing the co-op antics of Double Dash is a severe disappointment, but there are enough minor improvements to the rest of the game to make Mario Kart Wii a strong installment of the venerable series.

The gameplay is exactly what you would expect out of Mario Kart: fast-paced gonzo racing on a selection of insane tracks (16 new, 16 classic) with a bunch of explosive items in the mix to keep even the best drivers on their toes. The control is brilliant, the courses are tuned to perfection, and everything is polished to a high shine.

As a hardcore Mario Kart fan, the overhaul of the mini-turbo system takes a while to get used to. The new system (which is tied to the degree of your drift, rather than controller input as in previous games) certainly levels the playing field a bit between amateurs and veterans, but is that really a good thing? The franchise already catches enough flak for being newb-friendly and spastically random – which is admittedly part of its genius – but the turbo change feels like a dumbing-down of the gameplay in the pursuit of a misguided desire to make it somehow easier for my grandma to pick up and play. Note to Nintendo: Stop.

Racers and karts (as well as the new bikes) have been rebalanced as well, but in a good way. Much more so than in other Mario Kart titles, the light/medium/heavy choice is a strategic and stylistic decision rather than an opportunity to intentionally gimp yourself against inferior competition. Sure, it’s still tough to keep Bowser’s fat rear on the Rainbow Road, but at least it’s reasonably possible to win races with heavies now. Likewise, the balance between karts and bikes feels just right. Karts get better drift boosts, while bikes can wheelie for some extra straightaway speed – a simple but surprisingly relevant distinction on the track.

nline is a big focus for Mario Kart Wii, and it’s about as good an implementation as possible within Nintendo’s labyrinthine rules and regulations for Wii online play. The racing itself works well, and the Mario Kart channel has all sorts of goodies to allow you to view the statistics of players worldwide and find your place on the bell curve of Mario Kart skills. Hopefully there will be fewer idiots dropping connection when they’re about to lose than in the DS version, but only time will tell.

I feel very strongly that dropping the tag-team racing from Double Dash was an utterly boneheaded decision on Nintendo’s part, but you can’t fault much of anything else in Mario Kart Wii. This is a great game, single- or multiplayer, online or off.