11 Best Wii Racing Games

GT Pro Series is a Wii racer with eighty Japanese cars from companies like Honda, Subaru, Toyota and Nissan. The tracks follow the style of the Gran Turismo games, and MTO developed it. The cars are cel-shaded, but the places they drive through are drawn to look real. That mix looks strange in screenshots, and critics found the graphics underwhelming.

The few players who found it still speak up for it, and they compare it to the older Gran Turismo games. That is high praise for a cartoon-shaded car game on a console nobody bought for its car list. If you want a Wii racer about real Japanese cars instead of shells and boost pads, start here and forgive the looks.

Need for Speed: Carbon is the tenth game in the series and a sequel to 2005's Need for Speed: Most Wanted. EA Canada made it. Its big new idea is Canyon events, races on mountain roads outside the city styled after Japanese tōge racing. You can only drive the canyon roads during those events. In Career mode you pick a class of car at the start, and that choice stays for the whole playthrough. It also decides which district you begin in.

The whole story takes place at night, and a licensed EA Trax soundtrack plays under it. Most Wii racers are bright and cartoony, so Carbon stands out as the street racer of the bunch. Players name it next to the Wii's biggest games when they list what to buy. If you want a Wii racer with a grown-up look, this is it.

Donkey Kong Barrel Blast started life as a GameCube game called DK: Bongo Blast, shown at E3 in May 2006. It was built for the DK Bongos. That version was cancelled, the game moved to the Wii in 2007, and the bongo controls were turned into motion controls with the Wii Remote and Nunchuk. Paon, the studio behind DK: King of Swing, developed it. In Europe and Australia it is called Donkey Kong Jet Race.

Critics were harsh. GameSpot called it a fifth-rate Mario Kart clone, and most reviews blamed the imprecise motion controls that replaced the bongos. Players are kinder, and it keeps turning up on their lists of essential Wii games. It is Donkey Kong racing on barrels. Somehow that was enough for a lot of kids, and it still is.

Cars 2: The Video Game is based on the Disney and Pixar film and lets you race as its characters in exotic locations around the globe. Avalanche Software developed it. The film sends Lightning McQueen and his best friend Mater around the world for a series of races, starting in Tokyo and moving on to Porto Corsa in Italy. The game came out the same year as the film, which reached US cinemas on June 24.

Licensed games for kids rarely make lists like this one. This one did because players keep recommending it, and the ones who say why call it really fun, best with friends. If you have kids and a Wii, it is a safe pick for a weekend. If you do not, it is still better than the box suggests.

Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity is a hoverboard racer from Sonic Team and the sequel to Sonic Riders. Characters race on hovercraft called Extreme Gear, and a new gravity system replaces the first game's fuel. The tricks off ramps come back too, and now you have to time your jumps for a better rank. It came out in North America and Japan in January 2008, and in Europe the following month. It was first planned for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Reviews were mixed. Critics praised the graphics and the track designs but not the controls, and GameSpot wrote that "The basic Wii tilt controls are imprecise." That is the risk with every Wii racer, and some handle it better than others. If you want a Sonic racer that is not a kart game, this is the one on the Wii.

Speed Racer: The Videogame puts you in the cars of the characters from the film. The Wii version came out on May 6, 2008. You race through twisting stadium tracks, and winning a cup takes points as well as first places. Car-Fu is the hook: you fight rival racers with stunts, and pulling Car-Fu on a rival or destroying their car earns bonus points. The Wii version only works with the remote held sideways, with or without the Wii Wheel, and analog control is not supported.

Winifred Phillips composed the soundtrack, and it got positive reviews. Players who tried it compare it to F-Zero and call it a hidden gem. That is a strange thing to say about a movie game, and it is true anyway.

Need for Speed: Nitro is the only game in the series that was never made for PC. EA Montreal built it for the Wii, and a separate studio made the DS version. It is an arcade racer: powerslides and drafting earn style points, and nitro recharges over time. The road lines take on the colors of the leader's car, which the game calls Own it, and staying in first earns more style points. You can play with the Wii Remote alone, with the Nunchuk, with a Classic Controller or with a GameCube controller.

The Wii version has 26 songs, with artists like Dizzee Rascal and LMFAO. Players who love it call it the best Need for Speed on the Wii. If Carbon feels too dark and serious, this is the bright, loud version of the same idea.

TrackMania: Build to Race is the Wii version of a long-running PC racing series, and the heart of it is the track editor. You build tracks from blocks of track pieces: straights and curves, jumps, loops and boosts. There are six environments, each with its own car, from the racing car in the stadium to the mini car in the rally setting. Plain races ask for the fastest time, with bronze, silver and gold medal times to beat.

There is also a puzzle mode that gives you the start and the finish and makes you build the road between them. Players call it their favourite Wii driving game, and they warn that it starts fun and then gets hard. If you want a racer where the clock is the only rival, this is the one.

Excitebots: Trick Racing came out on April 20, 2009, as the fourth Excite game and the sequel to Excite Truck. You hold the remote sideways or put it in the Wii Wheel. Its 25 courses are big, so most races are two laps long, with plenty of other paths to take and massive air to catch. The courses are modeled after real places on Earth. The one exception is Crystal Nebula, on a made-up planet, and it is the hardest track in the game.

Despite good reviews, it never reached stores outside North America. IGN called it pure fun and gave it 8.4 out of 10, and Nintendo World Report called it a fantastic game. Its fans still recommend it to anyone who asks about Wii racers. If you find a copy, it is the wildest racer on the console.

Excite Truck was one of the Wii launch titles in North America. It is the third main game in the Excite series after Excitebike and Excitebike 64, and the first one with vehicles other than motorbikes. You turn the remote on its side to use it as a steering wheel. Crossing the line first is only one way to earn stars, and stars are what count. Each race ends with a letter grade based on your stars, with S at the top, and you do not have to finish first if you collected enough.

It was also the first Wii game that let you play your own MP3s from an SD card instead of its music. Players still hold it up as one of the best racers on the console. It came out with the Wii, and it does not play like a launch game at all.

Mario Kart Wii is the sixth game in the Mario Kart series, released worldwide in April 2008. It raised the field from 8 racers to 12 and added bikes to the series. You pick from 24 Mario characters and race on 32 tracks, and most copies came with the Wii Wheel. Hideki Konno, who produced the two games before it, came back to produce this one. Features cut from Mario Kart DS for time made it in here, along with better online play.

It sold over 37 million copies, second only to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe in the series. Critics praised the online mode and the tracks, and they complained about item balance and rubberband AI. Fans still build on it: the CTGP Revolution mod adds courses and 24-player races. Players recommend it more than any other Wii racing game, by a long way.