Prerelease:Mario Kart Wii/E3 2007

This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Mario Kart Wii.

Trailer

Nintendo's E3 2007 Screenshots

Mario Kart Wii was first announced in E3 2007, showing gameplay footage. At this point in development, the game already resembled its final form, though it was more similar to Mario Kart DS, as seen in some gameplay and graphical elements.

Courses

The courses shown in this trailer were Mario Circuit, Wario's Gold Mine, Mushroom Gorge, Moo Moo Meadows, Luigi Circuit, DS Yoshi Falls and GCN Peach Beach.

General

• The minimap wasn't present.
• The boost pads originally had a rainbow pattern, whereas in the final version it is Pink/Red/Yellow. Curiously, this is still present in the final version, in Coconut Mall.
• When an item box resurfaced after being picked up, it originally appeared immediately, while in the final version it quickly increased in size.

Mario Circuit

While very similar to the final version, model and texture differences can be found:

• Many of the MARIO billboards found in the course originally displayed the text MarioKart.

• The grey stoned walls found to the right of the starting line were originally extended up to the right side of the final curve in this build. In the final version, these walls were shortened, and brown walls were put in the remaining places instead.

• The bridge located in the lake area was missing.

• The crosswalks were originally present in different locations. Curiously, the Goombas were originally supposed to walk across these. loser_demo still retains the early crosswalk placement, and curiously, the placement of the second Goomba in the final version of the course makes more sense when loaded over loser_demo's course model: it was supposed to walk over a crosswalk.

• Shadows (such as those for the trees) were seemingly brighter. Additionally, the shadowing seen on top of the castle and the houses' roofs was a bit different.

• Some of the the yellow mountains were positioned a bit differently. There was also one additional mountain on the far left.

• The grass texture seen in the edges of the roads was mapped differently: the semicircular shapes were closer to the edge in the early version.

• The rainbow was positioned a bit lower in the early version.

• Another tree (the one seen close to the entrance of Peach's Castle) was not present in the early version.

Differences can also be found in the objects:

• The first set of item boxes only contained 4 of them, while in the final this number was increased to 5. As a result, their positions were also slightly changed in the final version to accommodate this new instance.

• Most of the flowers were positioned differently (those seen at the edge of the road).
  • The tree seen at the left side of the finish line was originally located a bit more to the left, and one extra tree originally appeared at its left as well. Curiously, the multiplayer version of the course have both 3D trees in the placement seen this build.
  • An extra 2D tree was originally present in the background in the lake area as well.
  • The tree seen at the corner of the section with the Chain Chomp couldn't be seen in this footage. However, it is actually present in the northern area with the houses, as seen in the trailer from the Fall Press Conference 2007.

• The cheering Shy Guys and Hammer Bros. were missing.

• The Goombas originally had darker shading, and lacked a shadow.

• The racers were slightly closer to each other at the start of the race.

Wario's Gold Mine

Extra frame of Wario's Gold Mine showcased at 38:30, which shows a different location of the track (before the first 180 degrees turn)

Double Dash!!	Final

• The "Super Wario" sign is different, as the one in the early versions seems to be an edited version of a sign that appears in Wario Colosseum from Mario Kart: Double Dash!!.
  The final "Wario's Gold Mine" billboard texture in the multiplayer version of the course (named TR_kanbanALL.tex0) has the same dimensions as the "Super Wario" sign, implying the early texture appeared there before eventually being replaced by the final one.
• The side rails in the first boost pad were originally shorter.
• There seems to be no shadows in some places, such as the bottom of the course (as seen when Wario goes into the boost pad) and in some walls.
• The clouds were originally edited versions of the ones from Waluigi Stadium from Double Dash!!.
• The arrows seen in the half pipe jump had a different shape in this version.
• The arrow model pointing to the shortcut near the end of the map is missing.

Moo Moo Meadows

• The cows were faster. One of these is shown running, when in the final version the can only walk (this animation is still present (but unused) in the game).
• There are much more trees in the early version.
• The skybox, while it used the same set of clouds as in the final version, they were distributed differently.
• The second set of item boxes in the course originally had more item boxes. These were also placed nearer to the start of the curve.

Mushroom Gorge

• There are less details on the wall of the cave.

Luigi Circuit

• The skybox is the same as the one seen in many of the Double Dash!! courses, such as GCN Mario Circuit, albeit with the texture flipped horizontally.
• The billboards seen in the side of the course were originally ported from Luigi Circuit from Double Dash!!.
• The billboards hanging from the building near the finish line originally had different textures.
• The black pillars next to the finish line originally looked more like in Double Dash!!.
  • The black structure in front of the finish line to the right originally had the same texture as the one from Luigi Circuit from Double Dash!! (as it has white marks, which are actually the numbers from "I" to "VI").

Characters

• Luigi's animation when he lands an attack is different.
• Yoshi's animation when steering his kart is simpler looking, similar to Mario Kart DS.

Vehicles

• The Offroader was missing both the spare tire on the back, and the flag was missing as well.
• Wario's Flame Flyer originally had its engine blower flaps colored purple instead of yellow.

HUD

• All of the HUD icons used to have a shadow drop. In the final version, only the position tracker still has it.
• The timer was absent.
• The lap counter is on the bottom right, and it was also slightly bigger.
  • The LAP graphic was also not present in this version.
  • The numbers and slash graphics had the yellow shading a bit less saturated, and the sides of said graphics were black instead of yellow.
• The item box window is always on-screen, despite having an item or not (much like in Mario Kart DS). The background for this icon was also completely opaque, unlike in the final version where it is semi-transparent. The frame texture also resembled the bubble design seen in some of the game's buttons (such as the back button).
  • Almost all of the item icon textures were ported from Mario Kart: Double Dash!! / Mario Kart DS in this build. The only exceptions are the Mushroom / Triple Mushrooms, which had an slightly different design, as well as what seems to be the Bullet Bill, whose graphic looked more primitive.
  • The Blooper, Mega Mushroom, Thunder Cloud nor the POW Block were present.
  • The item's icon did not blink when getting / using it in this build.
• The position tracker graphics were fully opaque, and did not have the slight transparent gradient that can be seen in the upper and lower part of the texture. Its shadow was completely opaque in this version as well, while in the final it's much more transparent.
  • These graphics originally contained the place number only, and lacked the st, nd, rd, or th at the end (or dot in the case of the German translation version).
• The Flower Cup icon was originally ported from Mario Kart: Double Dash!!
• The upper text, aside of being slightly smaller, only showed the cup name in this build. In the same way, the text displaying the course's name was also smaller in size.

Visual Effects

• Whenever you did a trick, your character did not do an animation, and their vehicle simply spun around. In addition, there were no effects around the vehicle when doing the trick.
• The flames from the exhaust pipes used to have a more detailed appearance.

Nintendo's E3 screenshots

Nintendo's official E3 website (as well as Nintendo's E3 2007 Online Press Kit) showed 3 exclusive screenshots. These actually show some differences in comparison to the video trailer:

• The design of the Standard Kart M was changed, and now it looks much like the final version, with changes such as 4 exhaust pipes instead of 2.
• The timer is present, with some design changes:
  • It originally used single and double commas to represent the minutes and seconds, instead of a colon and a dot.
  • It was positioned slightly more upwards than in the final version.
• The lap counter was moved up. However, in comparison with the final version, it was positioned a bit lower.