Our first look at Mario Kart Wii’s Battle Mode has appeared online. It looks like the game will support a ton of karts at the same time, 8 at least. This should make for some interesting battles. As much as racing in Mario Kart has been fun, it’s usually the Battle Mode that keeps me coming back for more months later. That was my biggest problem with Double Dash, the courses were small and lame. And that Shine game was not as fun as I’d hoped.

Seeing the balloons above Mario’s kart gives me hope that this time around the basic gameplay has not changed from the classic Battle Mode. Also the map looks sufficiently big enough to handle all of the players. I even like the multilayered aspect to it, which reminds me of “Double Deck” in Mario Kart 64 a little bit. There’s also a coin collection mode that tasks each racer to get the most coins.

We’ve also heard that the game will feature text chat, rather than voice as we’d been hoping. At least this game is getting a chat feature of some sort, Smash Bros Brawl players aren’t even getting that. The wait for Mario Kart Wii just gets more excruciating by the day. Could I have the game now?