F-Zero Wii
Probability: 85%
What is it?
Forget Mario Kart and its 150cc’s of shell-tossing buffoonery. F-Zero will decimate your eyeballs with blazing speed, psychedelic tracks and twitchy hair-pin turns. Originally released for the SNES, with follow-ups on the N64, GameCube and GameBoy Advance, you get futuristic racing on circuits so pro, they’d make Mario crap his overalls. While not a battling type of racing game, you’ll still have to avoid dirt patches, survive massive jumps and your opponent’s antics in order to survive.
We imagine F-Zero would mimic Excite Truck and Mario Kart’s racing design, by using the Wiimote as a wheel. Whether or not you want to use the fancy new plastic Wii Wheel is dependent on how silly you want to look. Maybe Sega will co-produce again as they did with F-Zero GX? We would hope F-Zero would make an even greater use of online multiplayer than Kart ever could (c’mon voice chat!) Imagine powersliding into your friend in Europe at 2000 km/hr and sending him clear off the track while yelling how much his mom sucks. Yeah, that would be awesome.
Above: VROOOOOOOOOOOOOM
Likely?
Oh yeah. If F-Zero doesn’t hit this winter, then we’d expect it to in the near future at the very least. The original has been on the Virtual Console for the entire Wii’s lifespan and Captain Falcon is always a major character in the Smash Bros. series. Not having an F-Zero installment would be criminally unfair, especially since the Wii should harbor technology better than Mode 7 and Blast Processing put together.
Mario Tennis Wii
Probability: 80%
What is it?
It’s a-Mario playing a-tennis. With Mario’s misfits in tow (including lovable Walugi), you’ll play singles and doubles against your buddies. And it wouldn’t be a Mario sports game without wacky power-ups, nigh unblockable super shots and themed courts. We played the crap out of Mario Power Tennis for the GameCube and we bet this update won’t be any different.
Our magic 8-balltells us Nintendo will lift the same exact control scheme from Wii Sports Tennis - a good thing - and add slight modifications (like charging A for a power shot). Maybe the RPG stuff will port over from the handheld versions? Also, we expect the character roster to be largely the same, except for some shakeups ala Kart’s Dry Bones Koopa or - gasp! - playing as a Mii.
Likely?
Oh god, yes. If you’ve seen a Mario sports game before on a Nintendo console, it’s totally coming back. Mario Strikers Charged was already released to fairly positive reviews and Mario Super Sluggers will hit Japan next month. Mario Power Tennis didn’t hit the GameCube until three years into the console’s life cycle. It may take a while, but we’re sure it’ll be a natural expansion for Wii Sports, even if we never get that official sequel.
