Someone wanted impressions.

Having only played the single-player side, I have to say it's great fun. There's 4 or 5 different vehicles each character can use (3 different karts, and a couple of bikes), and they're all easy to control. Yes, bikes. I'm sure you've heard that you can play using motorbikes (In fact, it's required on 100cc), but fear not! They handle just as well as the karts.

There was a mention of the levels, and of the ones I've played, they're all very well designed. You also get classic tracks from previous Mario Kart games, and though I can't speak for all of them (having not played the SNES or DS ones) they all look faithful and play pretty well.

The 12 players thing... Yeah. When you play battle (at least on your own) it assigns you to one of two teams, each with 6 players. It sounds bad, but it's actually quite fun. You can whack your team-mates - in Balloon Battle, it nicks one of their balloons - but the emphasis is on whacking the other guys. Since the levels you get are pretty big, it works out quite well, but I can see how some of you may want that one-on-one feeling.

I play using the attached wheel, which feels really weird at first! Once you get used to it (which doesn't take long at all), you'll wish you could play all driving games like this. It's how you always used to play your games, only this time tilting the remote sideways actually does make you turn. The rest of the controls are, as always, pretty simple - you only need to use three buttons. The 2 button accelerates, the 1 button hops (and lets you drift) and the D-Pad (or B) fires your weapons. That's it. Simple.

So overall, I love it. I think it's a great game and I urge you all to, at the very least, rent it.

I was going to say that I felt sorry that you have to wait another two weeks for this, but then I remembered that you guys nearly always gets things months before it comes out in Europe, and I therefore don't. Take that, corporate America!

EDIT: Thanks for adding me to your Wii Contacts list, vegeta. Now if only the other 30 people I'm waiting for would do the same...