Genre: Racing
Year: 2008
Developed by: Nintendo EAD
Published by: Nintendo
Platforms: Wii
#136
Feeling Like: Birdo number one!
Marty walks by my desk at Neverblue. He nods in the direction of the break room.
I don’t even need to ask.
Jamie, Cole, Zach, Jin, Marty, Roman, Cook, Scott, Brianne and David were usually there waiting. We could get in a four race grand prix in about 15 minutes, an acceptable amount of time for a mandated respite. That didn’t stop management from having a stern talk and temporarily suspending us from playing on the Wii during work hours, but that didn’t last long. What’s a break room for, if not breaks?
The disciplinary action may have something to do with the broken bits of wall by Jin’s head. I don’t exactly know why we were so physically rough with the room, it’s not as if we were shoving the chairs violently back when we got hit with a thunderbolt, or leapt into the air when we won a big race. Well, there may have been some of that, but with the size of the room and the number of the participants, that kind of shenanigans was inevitable.
I bought Mario Kart Wii at launch, but I really didn’t get into it until we started playing it at work three years later and soon after, I started to host Mario Karty Parties on Grant St. These gatherings involved booze, a giant whiteboard (love that thing!) and a competitive streak in an environment we could really let loose outside the confines of wanting to appear professional. What time’s our meeting?
Because of our growing familiarity and comfort with berating each other mid-race, the language grew monstrously crass. Everything from bumping somebody off the racetrack (side-bang) to passing on the shrinking cloud to getting sniped at the finish line, every aggressive action called for verbal backlash, without hesitation. Rubbing is racing.
It got to a point where we could mostly predict who would win each track before the race started. I loved every Bowser’s Castle course, but couldn’t win Koopa Cape to save my life. Naturally blue shells, three humans and eight other computer controlled racers have a major influence in whether you can get 1st or not, but trust me when I say this; we played so much that surprises became few and far between. It was ruthless, exactly how we wanted it.
I couldn’t stand using the Wiimotes for a game like this.
For aiming in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption or Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, amazing. Pinpoint accuracy and I still miss that in some modern console games. But when it comes to drafting, drifting and dodging, I need my Gamecube controller. Mercifully, you could use them on the Wii and since we had an adapter, everybody got to use the controllers I’d collected over the years. Once you go Wavebird, you really can’t go back.
I didn’t often get to play games with work colleagues, or have this many people over in general for something so nerdy. Mario Kart throughout the ages have had this allure, it’s cartoony enough for everybody to buy in, the mechanics are simple enough to understand without effort, the tracks are varied enough to encourage another race, the competition was fierce enough to get the competitive juices flowing, and the company was jovial enough to always want to join, or observe. We were also loud enough to garner the attention of middle management in not-so-positive way, but as long as our revenue targets were met morale was sky high thanks to Mario Kart Wii.
The 500 