Mario Kart Wii just came out and I got it for Lisa for her birthday. And then Grand Theft Auto IV went on sale two days ago, and I picked up a copy from the local Wal-Mart that afternoon. Suffice it to say that in between the work we both do (and now my being involved with a production of Children of Eden) Lisa and I have been compensating for outrageous gas prices by doing a lot of virtual driving lately.Right now on Amazon.com, Mario Kart Wii is the #2 top-selling game (after pre-orders for Wii Fit) followed by the Xbox 360 version of Grand Theft Auto IV.
So... which one is the better game?
Now that I've gotten used to the controls (although still struggling to maintain my convictions as I wrote about yesterday) I'm certainly enjoying the deep narrative - especially having to choose when faced with moral quandaries - that comes with Grand Theft Auto IV. However when it comes to sheer fun, Mario Kart Wii is the hands-down winner. This is also best-handling Mario Kart game to date: when using the Wii Remote with the Wii Wheel, driving a vehicle in this game feels very convincing and realistic (at least if driving through psychedelic landscapes filled with giant mushrooms is your idea of "realistic"). There's also the fun that comes with multi-player competition in Mario Kart Wii, in a way that I can't see a game like Grand Theft Auto IV ever providing.
So if you've somehow wound up with both a Wii and either an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, and have enough money for one game and don't know which one to get, I'd suggest going for Mario Kart Wii. Definitely a lot more sheer fun in this one, without the moral conflict... unless you genuinely feel bad about throwing turtle shells at your opponents :-P
3 comments:
How 'bout some screen shots?
Yeah! Screen shots!
And a question:
Do you have both the Wii andf the xbox hooked up to the smae tv at the same time or do you have the hooked up to separate tvs or do you hook up lets say the Wii to the tv, and when you want to play the xbox, do you unhook the wii and hook up the xbox?
Awright, Gerald I added a screenshot from Mario Kart Wii. I already did one for Grand Theft Auto IV in my earlier post, so Mario deserved one :-)
And so far as our entertainment setup goes: we've got a new LCD high-def TV (that's *bigger* than the previous one by 5 inches) because the original one went bad and I had to use the service plan. It has 3 HDMI inputs and multiple component inputs. I've got the cable/DVR box going into one HDMI, the upscaling DVD player into another and the Xbox 360 taking up the last one. The Wii only supports up to component input, so that takes up a set of ports. The original Xbox uses another component set. We don't have to rewire anything: just select whatever input we desire from the TV remote, turn on the appliance we want to use and we're all set :-)
(We do NOT have any fancy stereo setup, however. I know some people splurge a lot in that, but the TV's built-in speakers suit us just fine :-)
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