Mario Kart Wii is a lot of fun! If you play it online, the competition gets pretty stiff. You'll need all of these techniques to keep an edge on your opponents. I favor the Mach Bike, so this list may lean toward that somewhat in terms of ranking.
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1
Power Slide
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The tried and true PowerSlide. Very common, and nothing too special about it. The speed boost you get after powersliding is essential for keeping your speed up.
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2
Wheelie
Bikes only have one "level" of powersliding, unlike Karts, which have 2. The Bikes make up for it with the Wheelie, giving you some extra speed in straightaways. You can't steer much in the wheelie, and if another player bumps you, you'll loose a lot of speed, but still — coming out of a powerslide boost into a wheelie is some great speed.
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3
Quick Start
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The quick start gets you going from the starting line. With the Mach Bike, this amounts to pretty much always starting the race in the first 3 positions... Quick Start plus a Wheelie is nice, but watch your neighbors as you're likely to get bumped into while the pack is still thick.
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4
Air Tricks
Air Tricks are new in MK Wii. Shake the wheel when leaving that jump, and get a speed boost when you land. Nothing special, but you'll be doing it a lot.
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5
Burnout
In Mario Kart, you will get hit with stuff that knocks you to a dead stop. If you're using a bike that takes a while to get up to top speed (like the Mach Bike), the Burnout might be a better choice. From stop, hold both brake and throttle, and spin left and right, you'll get the same boost you get from power sliding. It takes a couple seconds to get the boost, but can be preferable to the eternity that rolling up to top speed seems to take.
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6
Shell Defense
If you're toward the front of the pack, you can expect to see some red shells coming your way. Hold onto those Bananas, Shells, and Blocks. When a Shell is coming your way from behind, holding sideways on the D-Pad will drag the item behind you instead of firing it or dropping it. Shells will hit the item instead of you.
Some people like to drag items as they get them whether or not a Shell is coming their way. This has the added advantage of being able to pick up a second item along the way. Personally, I don't do this, because it affects my steering, and I don't think you get that much benefit out of it, but whatever suits you
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7
POW avoidance
There are a few ways to Avoid POW's (other than being in the air from a jump)
SpinOut: Shake the wheel when the final "hit" occurs, and you'll spin out, lose all your items, but you won't lose any speed. Can be tricky if there is a lot going on, or when you're cornering, but very handy overall.
Hop: Hop as the POW hits... harder to time...
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8
Drop Start
You should avoid falling off things in general, but it can happen to the best of us. If it does, right when you're dropped back on the course, if you hit the gas, you'll get a speed boost. The timing is tricky on this one, but when you can do it right, it helps keep you in the race.
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9
Drafting
If you can stay directly behind an opponent long enough, you'll get a very nice speed boost.
Simple, and almost doesn't makes the list because it can happen by accident, but still knowing about it and using it appropriately can be great.
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10
Blue Shell Dodge
If you time it right, and you have a mushroom, you can dodge the blue shell.
Why would something so awesome as dodging the dreaded blue shell be so low on the list? Well Its extremely unlikely you'll be doing this much in online races. Mainly, its very rare that you'll have a mushroom while in first place. This is both because its rare to get that item when you're in the lead, and also its hard to hang onto items for long what with all the lightning bolts, red shells, and POW's coming your way.
However... It is possible, and pretty damn uber if you can actually pull it off online.
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11
Snaking
Nintendo did a lot to basically try to cut down/eliminate snaking from the game. It seems to have worked, as I don't see a lot of evidence for it happening online. However, it ~is possible (depending on your vehicle and character)
Snaking has always been a controversy. the technique is basically to continally "snake" back and forth getting repeated power boosts. The debate was always whether or not this counts as "cheating". Cheating or not, you basically had to use it if you wanted to compete online in Mario Kart DS...
Conventional wisdom seems to be that snaking doesn't do much for you in MK Wii. Since the amount of speed you get with karts is relative to the amount of time you spend sliding, you don't get much benefit. With bikes, people seem to feel that the Wheelie is better overall than snaking.
This is here more or less as a footnote. I personally don't use it, and don't see a lot of it online so far. As my ranking climbs though, maybe I'll encounter it (and update here if so).
Comments
vincefrantz (2 years ago)
I just bought MK Wii this weekend was curious about a lot of these.
bcolbow (1 year ago)
I just got this game 2 weeks ago and was thinking the same thing.
vincefrantz (1 year ago)
So far I have made some good progress - but still cant do the POW avoidance.
jpwalton (1 year ago)
POW Avoidance is hard. Sounds like we need to race again