Well, I was waiting for the right thing to put up as a first post but this seems to be as right as any.

So, my local independent game emporium (who shall remain anonymous, lest they get hosed) told me that I could get the Mario Kart Wii now with no issue provided I waited for the delivery.

Now lets see, I had the games I was going to part exchange with me (I was going to save time and just present the swap voucher tomorrow) and I had a chance to more or less stick a middle finger up at Nintendo of Europe whilst lining their pockets (I'll leave it to you to figure out the logistics of that).

Can't say much fairer than that.



Now, that's not to say I didn't think highly of Final Fantasy X and X-2 (One does not Turn Based into greatness and X-2 ran out of good lines after the Snake joke), Mario Kart DS (and it's constant snaking as ) or the DS Web Browser (which just up and out sucked)
But after trade in, I could get MKW for £16, I was more or less stealing the thing from them anyway.

I'll get back to you with the particulars of the game but so far, here's a quick run down of my half hour play around with it:

* - It forces a Wii Update (to 3.2e) I suspect that it's to deal with the freeloader.
* - You can install a "Mario Kart Channel" that works independently of the game (though can boot it up to do various things) that can deal with the greater majority of the things you can do online.
* - The focus of the mechanics is drifting and jumping seems to be an effect of this rather than it's own mechanic.
* - Blue shells are still in force and your character even looks up and has that look of "Oh Shi-" just before you get hit.