Monday 14 July 2008

Mario Kart Wii - how do you get 3 stars? (part 3)

Update: Part 1, Part 2, Part 4

Welcome to the 3rd exciting installment of my guide to getting 3 stars in Mario Kart Wii. Sorry it's been a while since I last posted, but work and Smash Bros have side-tracked me!
By the way, if you want an easy(ish) way to keep up with my latest posts, you can subscribe to the RSS feed - either using your own RSS reader, or using Google reader (my favourite!).

Without further ado, here is my next set of tips. This time, they all relate to various techniques for getting speed boosts. These can help you go much faster, but be warned that occasionally you may find they push you too far in the wrong direction, and you can hit a wall, fall off the track or hit an obstacle! If in doubt, don't use the turbo unless you are sure you can control it.

Marv's Ninth Tip: turbo at start and on corners
Well, this is kind-of two tips in one, but the first one is so obvious that I'm just putting it down for the sake of completeness and in case any of you have missed it!
You can get a turbo every time you start a race. Simply wait until the number 2 starts to disappear, and hold down the accelerator. When you start, you should get little flames behind your vehicle and zoom off much faster than you ordinarily would. Be careful though; press the accelerator too early and you will "spin out" - that is, your car will twisting from side to side and you won't go anywhere (if that happens, let go of the accelerator until you stop twisting ... then go!). The exact timing is difficult, and you may need to practise.
In fact, the closer you get to the spin-out time, without actually spinning out, the faster your turbo will be. You'll see this if you start playing against your own ghosts on Time Trials - sometimes your character will move further ahead, even using the same vehicle!
I would recommend learning how to get the turbo by ear as well as by looking at the screen. If you can do both, then it won't matter if someone walks in front of the screen, or you are playing on a small TV, or if someone starts talking to you, or forces you to play with your television muted!

The other main time you will want to turbo is when you are going around corners. Be aware though, that this will only work when you are in Manual mode (more below). You can ignore the rest of this tip if you use Automatic!
These turbos (mini turbos) work differently between cars and bikes, but the basic idea is that you keep the accelerator held down, but also hold the brake at the same time (this is the B button when using the wheel). Don't worry - pressing the brake won't slow you down as long as you have the accelerator pressed at the same time!
You will need to be steering into the corner (you don't have to steer much, but be careful not to steer the wrong way). When you press the brake, you will do a little hop and start "power-sliding". You can adjust your turn slightly by steering, but don't let go of the brake or accelerator!
Eventually, you will see blue sparks, and if you are on a bike or are in a kart and have run out of corner, this is when your turbo is ready. Try to point your vehicle in roughly the right direction, and let go of the break - you should have a little turbo! If you are on a bike, you can do a wheelie soon after the turbo to try to keep the high speed up.
If you are in a kart and the corner is long enough, you can hold the power-slide until you get orange sparks. This means that you'll get an even longer turbo, so it's worth holding out if you can! Again, don't wait for an orange turbo if it means you are going to end up going in the wrong direction or hitting something - stick with the blue sparks in these cases.
Occasionally, you will run out of corner before you even get the blue sparks - in that case, just straighten up and let go of the brake - it's better to stay on the track than risk a turbo which pushes you off!

Marv's Tenth Tip: go manual
Picking automatic means that your vehicle power-slides through corners automatically, which means you don't lose speed when cornering. However, picking manual means that you get turbos when you power-slide through a corner, which can make a massive difference!
This is, perhaps, controversial. I myself played through a lot of the Grand Prix on automatic originally, and found it a lot easier. I have seen comments from other people saying similar things. However, I now play through on Manual. The pros and cons of each break down like this:

Speed - turning
With Manual, if you don't power-slide while turning, you lose speed. his includes every time you adjust your direction, so you'll probably find yourself hopping about occasionally to face in the right direction. However, with Automatic, whenever you turn, or corner, power-sliding is automatically done for you, so you never lose speed.

Speed - straights
Unlike in Mario Kart DS, "snaking" (which is doing lots of little mini turbos in a straight line) is not a big factor here, so there is no difference.

Speed - recovery
There are many, many occasions where you have been hit by an item and want to get your speed back up. Using power-slides to turbo around a corner are a great way of doing this!

Turbos on corners
Here is the big advantage of the manual option - you can get at least one turbo on many corners. Often more than one!
When automatically power-sliding, you don't get blue sparks on the corners, so no turbos for you.

Overall speed
It's no coincidence that all of the records you see for time trials are done using manual steering; used effectively, those turbos make a big difference!

CPU difficulty
I have seen it mentioned on the internet that the computer "goes easy on you" if you choose the Automatic option. I haven't verified this yet, but it could be possible. The thing is, that you will hopefully be playing against real people at some point, and they definitely won't go easy on you!

Kudos
Because manual is widely regarded as the "true way" to play Mario Kart, you will get more kudos if you play this way!

Difficulty to learn
It is definitely easier to pick up automatic steering. When you first try to switch back to manual, you will be tempted to quit almost immediately. Stick with it, though, and you will soon get the hang of it.

With the wheel
Because the wheel is that bit more imprecise, using automatic makes a big difference here. Personally, I think that Nintendo were almost-forced to put the automatic option in, because otherwise beginners would struggle to cope with playing with the wheel.

Verdict
You will end up playing on Manual eventually anyway, so it's not worth taking the false sense of security of using automatic - not if you want to properly earn those 3 stars and to defend them on-line! Stick with manual! Marv's Eleventh tip: use tricks
If you haven't read the manual that came with Mario Kart, go ahead and read it now! Read it? Good! Tricks, along with bikes and the wheel, are one of the new additions to Mario Kart that have come in with the Wii version. There must be a reason they're there, and there is...
Whenever you take a jump from a ramp (that is - for every jump that's not just you hitting the power-slide button), you can perform your trick action (either flicking the wiimote or wheel, or pressing the appropriate button - read that manual!) and then when you land, you will get a speed boost. This comes in handy more on some courses than others, but probably on at least half of them!
It applies to ramps with or without speed boosts, and even in some strange places - like in Bowser's Castle (Wii), where there's the wobbly floor; keep trying tricks there and you'll get at least one, possibly two boosts. You can also get boosts from the edges of the lava geysers close to the finish line. On Coconut Mall, you can get trickable jumps from many of the obstacles (water fountains, tree bases, etc).
There are courses with half-pipes - you can do tricks here, but be aware that some of them are too far from the racing line for it to be worth it. When you do do a trick from a half-pipe, try to make it as shallow an angle as possible. Don't do what I sometimes do, which is end up facing backwards!

Marv's Twelth Tip: turbo when you fall off
Just a short one, this one, but not very well known. When you fall, or are knocked off the track (into deep water, lava or space), you can get a turbo when you are placed back on the track by helpful Lakitu. If you press the accelerator at the very instance your wheels touch the track, you should get a turbo. It seems to me that the timing on this is much less forgiving than for other things (like the turbo from the start line, and for tricks), but it's worth practising!

Marv's bonus Thirtheenth Tip: Avoiding POW blocks
This one was going to wait until next time, but some of you were anxious for it, and kadjius has posted the technique in the comments anyway!
When the POW block appears on screen, it thumps or bangs three times.
Carry out your trick action (shake the wheel or wiimote, for example) when the third thump hits. You will lose your item, and spin around, but if you have timed it right, you will lose no speed and will carry on as normal! It does take practise, but is very worth it. The only annoyance is if you are in the middle of taking a corner or have a power up you were waiting to use!
The one other time you can avoid POW blocks is if you are in mid-air - either from a jump on a ramp, or through a cannon.

Well, that's the end of the tips for this time. Well done if you made it all the way through them, because it was a long read this time! There are still some tips to give out, so stay tuned and I'll post again soon. Please feel free to post any questions, or even your own tips in the comments!

11 comments:

Jordan said...

Just one note: Tricks aren't always good to do.
Check the time trials, there are certain areas where the trick animation will actually slow you down longer than the boost speeds you up.
In general it's not a bad idea to do tricks off everything, and especially when you need to get back up to speed, but they're not always useful.
Use at your own risk.

Anonymous said...

True what Jordan said, especially in Waluigi's Stadium. In a few ramps u must NOT do tricks to be able to do those U turns easier.


By the way, I'm a proud 2 Star ranked racer thanks to your tips :D.

An interesting thing is in Mirror Mode, i got 2 Stars from the Special GP even though in the last race I ended 5th (Last curve, last race I got owned several times :). I read somewhere that you needed an overall pts of 57+ to get 2 Stars but I guess that's not correct :)

Anonymous said...

Quick question, in order to get the 3 star raking, do you have to get three stars in every Grand Prix of every class(meaning 50cc, 100cc, 150cc, and Mirror) or can you just do it in 50cc and get the 3 star ranking?

Marv said...

Hi jordan, anonymous1 and anonymous2! Thank you for the tips! You may well be right about not doing tricks at every opportunity. I have noticed that the fastest times on DK Summit don't go over all of the jumps just before the slalom descent, but I had assumed that it was being in the air for a long time that slowed you down, rather than the trick animation...

anonymous2 ... I'm afraid that you'll have to get 3 stars in each GP class! Just getting them in 50CC will do nothing. It will take a while! What makes it even more tricky is that your strategy for some courses may need to adapt for higher speeds (there may be shortcuts that become available because you can do longer jumps, and others that become a lot trickier as you don't have time to re-orient yourself).

David Diaz said...

Also Marv,

one of the main reasons you mght want to avoid doing tricks in ramps is because when you land, you get a boost. Sometimes, getting this boost will make you take longer to turn (Ex, Waluigi's Stadium first ramp). If you dont do any tricks, u can do a faster turn.

Anonymous said...

David Diaz, it's true that the first ramp will slow you down in the waluigi stadium, but this goes different for the bowser bike since it takes the corners alot sharper. I personally found this one of the easiest ways to rank 1st on all lvls (bowser bike)

Anonymous said...

I just got 3 stars on the 50cc Flower GP, I led every lap, only lost the lead for a couple seconds after getteing whacked twice by a green and then blue shell. I didn't do anything too special except race clean and fast.. here are my times and differential to 2nd place..

Mario Circuit 2:07 +11 secs..
Coconut Mall 2:53 +8..
DK Summit 3:00 +10..
Wario's Mine 2:49 +7..

The differential to 2nd is strange tho', I've won races by half a lap and the game gives me an 8 sec lead, then I'll win by a much shorter distance and yet the time difference is much larger.. it seems arbitrary to me..

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the article. It was very helpful. However, manual is not always better than automatic. I use automatic all the time. I have an overall 3 star ranking and am in the 9000s online, consistently beating manual users. With enough practice, you can do better with automatic than manual.

pjt36 said...

Just finished last night .... got my final 3 star GP. Marv has already covered a good deal of ground but I can tell you what I know .... I did it with all the same character, kart and settings ... Mario with Wild Wing on Automatic with a wheel. Consistency is a big key to getting those lap times down.

My tips.
- Pick a driver and Kart and stick with it.
- Acceleration isn't as important as overall speed. You'll need to steer a clean race anyway .... repetition helps here .... don't wack the walls and stay on the track. This keeps your speed up and you don't need much in the way of acceleration.
- I never got a third star when I'd used a Bullit Bill. (You can get one and still get a third star ... I did do that, but you cannot use him)
- Clobber the competition. Every chance you get. Often you will be in first place, so you might think all you need to do is trail a banana peel to protect you from red shells. This won't do it. You need to be attacking, even from the front. So, strategically drop bananas and fake boxes, fire shells and bombs behind you. This does two things, Improves your "overall" score and when they're getting wacked, they cannot wack you.
- Limit tricks ... if you're on a jump where you are going to catch a lot of air anyway, do the trick, otherwise, keep your wheels in contact with the ground as much as possible. If your wheels are in the air while you're doing a trick, you're not keeping up your speed and the boost often doesn't make up for it and you lose a measure of control. (Grumble Volcano is a perfect illustration of this concept).
- Don't panic ... you don't have to lead all the time (just most of the time) ... just be sure you keep in the race .... those drivers ahead of you are bound to screw up. As an example, Rainbow road is an easy win if you just stay on the track, every other driver will fall off, if you don't you should win by at least 30 seconds.

That's All I have for now, hope this helps ... good luck, and I'll see you online.

PT
Portsmouth, NH

Shane said...

I would like to offer comments on two subjects;
Mini-Turbos: Power slide just long enough to get a burst, then use it, then power slide again for a second burst. Holding a loooong slide to gain orange sparks does give you a longer burst BUT the time it takes nullifies the gain. You can gain more ground overall with multiple mini-turbos.
Particularly on huge wide corners.

Secondly: I am chasing a dream of 200cc . . . I read that if you gain 3stars on every race/GP it unlocks 200cc. Wow!
If you look at the opening menu score cards for each licence it has 50cc, 100cc, 150cc AND THEN A BLANK LINE!!!! Just like it coiuld be waiting to be unlocked.
Now I don't know if 200cc exists but this does make it look plausible, can anybody offer comment?

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure you just need a gold for everything and it unlocks "mirror" where everything is in revers. I have 2star rating for 50cc and 100cc most of 150 cc and the rest is just gold medals. I had the mirror rases opened long before I went back to get my star ratings. If that's helps