Kotaku
The online competition heats up today as Nintendo introduces the first in a series of worldwide Mario Kart Wii tournaments. Every few weeks a new special tournament challenge will appear on the Mario Kart Channel, allowing players to attempt them as many times as they'd like for the duration of said challenge, with the best times sent to the worldwide rankings to see how they stack up to the competition. Challenges can range from simply getting the best times with a certain character to using specific control setups or collecting the most coins. The first tournament should be up today, challenging gamers to get the fastest time on the Mario Circuit...with a twist. This is a pretty nifty way to keep fans coming back to the game, allowing them to prove their Mario Kart prowess without being a complete jerk about it.
Nintendo Announces Worldwide Mario Kart Wii TournamentsNintendo has thrown down the gauntlet for Mario Kart® Wii racers worldwide. Now it's time to see who's up to the challenge, as players take on the world in Mario Kart Wii Tournaments.
Every few weeks, a new tournament will appear on the Mario Kart Channel, an online feature that not only allows players to compete in tournaments, but also exchange race data with friends. Tournaments might take the form of a challenge for players to race a certain course as fast as they can with specific characters, or to collect a number of coins on a course using the Wii Wheel™ accessory or another control setup. They can feature unique rules or obstacles on the course.
The first tournament, which appears today, directs racers to compete for the fastest time on the Mario Circuit. Look closely though - something may be different. Players can attempt the challenge as often as they like during the duration of the tournament. Their best time will be recorded and added to the worldwide rankings, allowing players to see how they stack up against the best racers from around the world.
Comments
I briefly tried this yesterday. Do the tourneys allow only wii wheel control scheme?
Crecente wears those glasses so nobody can put the red-eye on him.
The new Mario Kart is great, but I don't think it's really tournament material. It's way too easy to go from first-to-last in it, even compared to Double Dash.
"Look closely though - something may be different."
Just out of curiosity, what is the difference?
Tournaments... yay... so what do we win? I guess its cool to have it though. Btw, I love that picture.
@cordsie: Nah, he's like Cyclops. Without the glasses he would blast that other guys head off.
Although Nintendo's online platform is FAR from perfect, It's great to see them slowly come to terms with the fact that online gaming is a big deal. If only they would hurry it up a bit and had designed the system to be better. Maybe one code per system... since they insisted on implementing friends codes they could have spent more time making them less painful!
My regret about Mario Kart Wii is the fact that when you happen to have a few friends round, you cant play some Vs matches without the included bots? Why can't you just play some 4 player Vs matches instead of being split into teams and with computer controlled characters? Or am I just missing something, an unlock able option perhaps? Reading the instruction manual?
Anyway, now that Mario Kart is out, hurry up and release Brawl in Australia PLEASE D:
Thats pretty cool, well done Nintendo
But god damn Crecente those shades look so so so cool!!
@satek: The option is there to turn the bots off. But its squirelled away in the options menu
That picture cracks me up everytime I see it
@ruslander: Chain Chomps are unchained, and let loose around the track. Also, the item boxes are scattered differently.
It's not much of a difference, but.. It's something, I guess!
We need a caption competition for that picture.
@Cruithne: Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
I make that noise while playing Mario Kart, it's how I win!
Caption: It's a me, MARIO!
"Hey Mario, I just ate Toad. Why do you look like Ron Jeremy?"
Crecente is looking at Mario like I'm going to kick your ass using yoshi!
caption: "Seriously, one more blue shell and punch you straight in the mustache"
picture caption: ONE MORE TIME ABOUT THE MUSTACHE RIDE AND I WILL RIP IT OFF YOUR FACE
@cordsie: @Cruithne: My goatee
gets gets more mustache rides!
I just hope Seanbaby does not start another tedious flame war with that Mario lookalike.
"So glad I ran into you! I have this problem where my sink keeps clogging up, and...what? Oh. I see. A princess. But you can send your brother? He makes Denver house calls? Perfect. Here's the address. Huh? No I don't have any mushrooms! Who do you take me for, anyway?"
caption contest aside, i think nintendo is making great progress online. It's unfortunate that they were not able to do the same for SSBB but MKW is probably more important to nintendo.
Another side note, does anyone else think that toggling still affects a powerslide? Am I crazy?
caption: I hope your mustache rides are better than your driving skills.
@TP/\C SHKR: Damn, snap!
OR
"Yes I KNOW the booth for the pirate game is over there. No, I'm really not in the wrong place. My site is covering the Mario Kart launch, and... no, I didn't lose an eye patch! You know what, just forget it. Really. Forget it."
@excel_excel: Ah thank you! I bought it while friends were over, so we were having too much fun to actually read the instructions :D
@satek:
before you race, turn the CPU options to off
I can has mustache?
@inkedgamer: Thanks kindly. Though it may have been foolish to ask such a question on here without doing my research first. Then again I knew other Kotaku-ers would know.
Good luck in the competitions for all who enter, Happy Karting!
caption: It's-a-me Crescente!
I checked the messages this morning when I saw the soothing Blue Light glowing.
Didn't get a chance to actually check out the race...or what's different. But I look forward to doing so today for SURE.
caption:
"It's-a-me now, bitch."
@Cruithne:
........ (-_-''')
*shoots him in the head*
neeext!
:rolleyes:
@Cruithne: Always with the extra S ;)
@AgainstOne: i should have prefaced my caption with: (after taking first place)
Tournament? Competitive gameplay? These are not words that should go along with Mario Kart. It would be like somebody saying "I can play the lottery better than you."
@dcaoko: I don't know, but they should. It's really the only way to fairly judge.
How in the hell are people getting like 1:35:xxx times on this? :\ lol
I was happy with a 2:00:xxx time haha
Oh, how I wish I can connect my Wii online at school (which I can but it's not legal). Just two more weeks. Just two more weeks.
"Antoine Laconte" is giving Mario some tip on how to be a winner. It worked for Deuce...Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo!
@globones: Not sure if you're just trolling, but the only major luckfest MK was Double Dash. The original, MK64, and MKDS all reward skill significantly. On the other hand, I haven't played enough of MK Wii to know where it stands. I have a feeling that its significantly watered down though. And moose_pants's comment isn't encouraging.
Crecente:
"I just ate a garlic sammich for lunch"
*Gets in marios face*
"PWNED WITH PRINCESS PEACH BIAOTCH!"
Got 2:02:xxx but having problems with connection-cant send record -error 61070.
I got 2:04:xx.
Does anybody have any tips as to how these Japanese (& French) are getting 1:3X:xx? Are they just lucking out with a bullet bill or are those turned off? I have not seen a blue shell in the tourney yet.
On the "Wii online is far from perfect" topic that satek brought up:
I feel that there's a paradigm that "accessibility" equals "better," that in an age of rampant AIM usage and stalker-iffic Facebook and MySpace features, people should always simply be one click away. Why is it that having to input a 12-digit number into a game console suddenly means that a service is awful beyond usefulness?
Personally, I like Wii online. I get the concept.
I play competitive Smash Bros. Brawl matches on Gamebattles, and hell if I want some of my opponents on my actual Wii Friends list! I want them to be my friend on Brawl until I play them, then promptly remove them. If they were my Wii friend, they could send me stupid Miis or horribly racist/offensive Wii-mails, among probably other things I can't even think of.
And I'm sick of getting on Xbox LIVE to play Halo 3 and getting twenty messages from my friends demanding that I play Call of Duty 4 or GTA IV with them. I don't want to play CoD right now. I don't own GTA IV. If I wanted to play something besides Halo 3, I would damn well put a game disc into my Xbox 360 that isn't Halo 3, but clearly that did not happen, so stop harassing me!
So no, you can't access people as easily on the Wii - and that's exactly how I, personally, like it. I'm sick of Xbox LIVE's "big brother" feel, where everyone you've ever come into contact with can send you voice and text messages and see what you're playing and doing at all times and watching the last time you were logged onto LIVE.
And would voice chat be nice? Sure, but it's not worth it for Nintendo to invest in, because they'd likely only make voice chat available between friends - and personally, I would only use it with my friends. I'm pretty liberal, but the language on Xbox LIVE is absolute trash. I've heard the words "f**got" and "n***er" more times on LIVE than I heard in 12 years of public school and at least 10 years of rated R movies. It's disgusting, and it ruins the experience for me.
Nintendo wants to deliver a safe, friendly online experience, and they were successful in reaching that goal. Honestly, if their servers would simply decrease the lag I experience once in a while on Brawl, I would say that Nintendo has the best online service in terms of being able to stay comfortable while playing. Even when I'm competing on Gamebattles, video games are still about relaxing, not getting pissed at people for being rampant homophobes or for cursing at you and your mom for an entire match.
And I doubt that most of the less "hardcore" gamers care too much about the lag; in fact, I'm guessing that the average Mario Kart player doesn't really notice or care about the extremely minor lag they experience. Sure, Nintendo could pay more attention to perfecting the lag to appease the "hardcore gamer," but last time I checked, all that "hardcore" gamers and video game news sites do is shit all over Nintendo for not having enough "quality" games. And yet the Wii continues to dominate console sales... if I were Nintendo, I'd be like "why would we spend money fixing something that the majority of people don't care about, and the rest are assholes about it?"
(I thought at first that this post might be a little off-topic, but I don't think that "off-topic" exists anymore, given this thread's impromptu caption contest ^^)
@cordsie: They could just put it on the glasses to make it seem like his eyes are glowing through the glasses.
As for the piuc, it looks like Mario found out that Crecente ate the piece of garlic seen in the famous (or shall I say infamous) fake Crecente video.
1:33 is the fastest time I've seen so far - I got something like 1:56 - and I can only conclude that these people are lucking out on items. The only way I can see anyone shaving nearly half a minute off of the time I got from a pretty danged good run, is by getting a lot of mushrooms or other speed boosts.
It totally looks like Crescente is going to neck bite Mario... LOL
Hell yes! You know I'll be on this!