Our copy of Mario Kart Wii showed up at the house yesterday and we spent a good chunk of the evening checking it out.

Wii Wheel

For starters, the steering wheel is great. It’s lightweight, yet very durable (the kids kept dropping it) and it was very well thought out. The backside of the wheel has a hole for the wii remote strap and a button for accessing the B button on your remote. The Wii Remote fits snugly into the center of the wheel, yet is easy to remove when you need to take it out. There is even a transparent window on the side of the wheel so you can still use the wii remote while it is housed inside the wheel. I was very impressed with all aspects of it.

The Game

Mario Kart Wii shows the same level of polish that Nintendo is known for. The menus and title screen were simple and easy to navigate and getting right into the game took no time at all.

The Controls

My big concern with most Wii titles to date is the accuracy of their controls. This is not the case with Mario Kart Wii. There was a slight learning curve to get things going, but once you get it down it is an altogether joy to play.

There is a lot more to this game and we have barely scratched the surface. I’ll save the rest for the formal review, but if you are on the fence about this right now allow me to sway you. From what I’ve seem of the game so far, it’s great. I didn’t want to do anything but play it all night long. I can’t say that this will be the case for everyone, but I sincerely enjoyed myself. I can’t wait to see what multi-player is like.