Mario Kart Wii Launch Dates Announced

If Mario didn't start to bother you to death, make you cry and feel like the moment of quitting has come (but a much more detailed feature about this will be posted tomorrow, so stay tuned!), then you'll probably be really excited to hear that the release dates for Mario Kart Wii, both for the US and Europe have been announced by Nintendo. It will first hit the European markets on the 11th of April, and the States starting the 27th of the same month.

Probably the biggest feature and definitely the only innovation is the Wii Wheel that will come bundled with the game and promises to make it easy for novices to compete against veterans and there should be some players involved, since the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection allows up to 11 players from around the world to compete against each other for racing dominance.

Mario Kart Wii includes 16 new courses and 16 old ones you already know from the previous Mario Kart games. Also, for this new version, motorbikes will be available to drive, together with the well known karts. Also, you can of course use your Miis to race with if you've got to that point where you can't do anything without them. The rest is the plain old Mario Kart games, filled with the well known icons, power-ups and so on.

"Mario Kart Wii transforms one of our most popular franchises into a race that every member of the family can join," said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. "Driving with the Wii Wheel could not be more natural, and this is one place where speeding is encouraged."

In order to make everybody happy, Nintendo offers a bunch of control options, in addition to the Wii Wheel. This means that you'll be able to play this game using the Wii Remote with or without the Wii Wheel, Wii Remote and Nunchuk controller combo, Classic Controller and even the Nintendo GameCube controller. Only the keyboard and mouse are missing.

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