Wii Games like Mario Kart?

Swap out Mario & Co w/ Sonic the Hedgehog & the SEGA roster - and you have Sonic & SEGA All Stars Racing.

http://www.amazon.com/Sonic-All-Star.../dp/B002BH3N2W


This is realy just MK Wii with a SEGA paintjob.

Or another Kart-like game that meets your multiplayer desires - and gets a tad "weird" (in a good way): Excitebots: Trick Racing

http://www.amazon.com/ExciteBots-Tri...9929949&sr=1-1

I personally enjoyed this one - esp the fact that unlike MK Wii, which for me is vastly more enjoyable & accurate using the Wiimote/nunchuk scheme VS the Wheel, Excitebots only supports the Wii Wheel or Wiimote alone. Far more responsive motion based turning with this than in MK Wii, IMO.

Outside of racing games, most EA Sports Wii titles have good online implementation (mainly due to using EA servers as opposed to Nintendo's) & in the case of Wii, tend to have more casual-friendly options. The most popular on Wii would be the Tiger Woods games, although to get the most frm the TW PGA games, you want to make sure you also have Motion Plus capabilities.

And both major music game franchises - Rock Band & Guitar Hero - also allow online play in addition to local group fun. The recent Rock Band 3 is easily the best music game to date (particularly among Wii choices), and even allows users to filter/sort songs based on several criteria, incl "family friendly" tracks.

AFAIK, Sonic karting has the same online features as MK Wii - friends or randoms can be played against.

Activision issued the music title Band Hero last year. A more "pop" version of Guitar Hero 5 with a likely more teen-girl frendly setlist - plus it shares a music store w/ the main GH franchise.

For multiplatform games, go w/ the 360. Graphically, it will be nicer.

Yes - you can download new tracks that you purchase w/ Wii/XBL Points. While w/ the Rock Band franchise, the Wii is limited in terms of how much content is available (though far less so w/ RB3 than it's predecessors), the Guitar Hero games have been on par feature-wise on all systems since last years' GH5 & Band Hero releases.

Single tracks are generally $2/each, occasional freebies or $1 tracks pop up. As well, tracks are often sold in "packs" - allowing you to make a multi-song purchase for a slight discount. Band Hero shares the Guitar Hero music store servers, so any GH tracks can be purchased & played in Band Hero.

On 360, tracks obviously are stored on the console's hard drive. For Wii, you need to use an SD card - cards up to 32GB are supported.

As a player who still digs on the genre, I gotta say from a gameplay & content standpoint, the RB franchise is vastly superior to GH in pretty much every way. And Harmonix did a great job on RB3 Wii - pretty much every lacking feature from the previous 2 games is now in the current Wii version. Hands down the Wii's best music title.

If your daughters are more interested in just singing, there are sseveral music games of that sort out there. If they are GLEE fans, there is a GLEE Sing It (uses USB microphones) that is currently a Wii exclusive.

No problem.

I could be wrong, but I seem to recall Band Hero selling better on Wii overall - not by too much - so that could explain the Wii edition being pricier (more likely to sell @ this point). But what you paid for a game & a mostly "full" band set up....cannot beat that!

And should you or the kids decide to check out the RB games (RB3 is still, IMO, the best of the bunch - and The Beatles RB is one of the nicest looking games of it's kind), your Band Hero gear will be compatible.

Saw a video of Sonic Colors co-op play on Wii earlier today - looks pretty sweet.

NASCAR Kart Racers is a solid karting game that was basically Mario Kart with a NASCAR theme loosely applied to the game to justify the name on the cover and draw in NASCAR fans.

The only problem is it lacked online play. So if you were spoiled by Mario Kart Wii's excellent online multiplayer, this game is going to seem somewhat bland and short lived.