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On Sunday I headed out to Best Buy and picked up a copy of Mario Kart Wii and a couple of spare Wii Wheels so that I could play with the family. I have to admit, I was pretty excited. The game touts online multiplayer as well as national rankings and ladders and tournaments... it has the promise to be every bit as compelling as "Kart Racer" in Korea where, I believe, 1 in every 4 Koreans plays that game regularly. Kart Racer champions are treated as celebrities.
But I digress. So, I get home and throw the disc into the Wii and I'm ready to play some Mario Kart with my daughter. After seeing the warnings telling me not to throw my Wiimote into the television set, I get a black screen and nothing else. I let the console do whatever it was doing for 10 full minutes before powering it off. This continued to take place for the better part of 45 minutes to an hour. I even busted out the old-school "diagnostic" techniques such as blowing on the cart (CD) and blowing into the console itself. No dice.
So I then perform my due diligence like any former tech support rep would do. I proceed to play 10 minutes worth of each game I own for the Wii to make sure that all other games function properly. All is good in the worlds of Zelda, Call of Duty 3, and Red Steel.
Now I go back to Best Buy and get a replacement game. They were more than accommodating and I was in and out of there in a matter of minutes. Once home, I plunked the Mario Kart Wii disc into the console and let 'er rip. This time, I was able to play through an entire race. When the second race went to start, I got the black screen of anguish again. Fast-forward 20 minutes, and my system memory has been wiped. All of my saved games are gone and all of my Mii's have disappeared.
The good news is that now I can go directly into the game and play through a complete race and even load a second race. Now, the black screen of anguish has been replaced by a decidedly Windows-esque freeze where the video stops moving and the audio sticks on a single note/frequency and the only recourse is to power the machine off. The furthest I have managed to play before receiving the console-freeze has been 3.5 races...which sucks because I came in first place in all of the previous 3 races, but because of the freeze the console never saved my data.
Yes, I have performed a system update... I sat there for 10 minutes re-hitting system update just to make sure I was on the latest version (which I think is 3.2U). After speaking to Nintendo, they said that for all other games, you simply send them the game. But, for this game and for Super Smash Brothers Brawl, they want me to send them my entire console as well as the game. So I'm supposed to give up my Wii for weeks and weeks for them to 'repair' a game disc??? I know that the fault lies on the disc because my console works flawlessly for all other games.
My guess is they either have rampant crappy code and they pulled an incredibly un-nintendo-like move and released the game too soon, or there is a flaw in their manufacturing/duplication process and the entire batch of discs that I got from Best Buy was affected somehow.
Either way, I'm cranky, pissed off, and am saddled with 3 Wii wheels and a useless game that I am going to return to Best Buy tonight for a full refund. I'd rather not play Mario Kart at all than send my entire console away for 8-12 weeks. I expect crap like this to happen on Windows/PC games, but, part of the appeal of consoles is that the games always work... Its mind-bogglingly aggravating when you buy a game you've been awaiting for months only to have it not work.
What a pitty.
I also had some problems with the EU version: Sometimes the game
hangs/crashes with a black screen telling me to turn off the machine.
I never had this error with any other game, all was running fine.
However I didn't get the error recently, although nothing was changed...
I agree... Other than back in the days of blowing air onto the Zelda gold
cartridge, I've never had any trouble with any Nintendo game not
functioning... some of them sucked (Red Steel, but that's not first party),
but none of them have come with the kind of aggravation that Mario Kart has
given me.
That really sucks. I wonder if this is an epidemic or not. I was going to
go out and do the same thing, get the game and extra wheels, but maybe I am
glad I didn't!
Oh wow - that hurts! UK side there was a system update I had to run off the
Mario Kart CD, and after the restart everything has worked perfectly.
I called up Nintendo and let them know that I've had 2 games do this to me.
Despite my Wii being out of warranty (yes, if you bought your Wii during
the first week it was out, your warranty is up), they said they would pay
for the repair charge. I'll be sending the Wii to them and it should be
repaired within 11-13 business days. I suspect that there is some kind of
issue with the Smash Brothers and Mario Kart media that certain Wii
consoles cannot read properly.
This is not a problem with the game. It IS a problem with the console.
Nintendo has stated that some consoles have a problem reading any game on a
dual layer disc. Mario Kart and Smash Bros are the only two so far. The
only solution is to send in the console for repair.
You could ignore this, but I think you will see MANY more dual layer games
that will not work on your console in the future. These two games have been
the last two MAJOR releases from nintendo and I would bet most of the
future major releases will be pressed on dual layer discs as well.
Right... As I've said, I know that my console can't read Super Mario Kart
properly. However, you know how talking to support goes - I need to do
everything possible to rule out a potential defect or
dust/dirt/stain/scratch with the disc itself. Best Buy was more than
accommodating when I returned for a fresh disc. After speaking to Nintendo,
they said they needed both the disc, and the console to do the repair ...
I'm wondering if there are different manufacturing processes for different
discs? Either way, I'm shipping the console out tomorrow and hopefully in a
couple weeks I'll be playing Mario Kart. And as you said, if there are more
dual-layer releases on the horizon, I might as well get the Wii fixed now.
