Factory Entertainment Mario Kart Wii Cards Review

On Saturday we received a sample box from Factory Entertainment, they had kindly sent us the new Mario Kart Wii cards to review for the site, which with a lot of help as you will read, we did.

Let’s start with some background on the product: It was produced in conjunction with EnterPlay in the US and the UK set differs from it’s colonial brethren in a few respects: the boxes have been changed slightly, with the addition of the UK price, Factory Entertainment logos/details, and tweaks to the set composition. The insert ratios are slightly different (1:2 vs 2:3) The UK set is without stickers and that probably accounts for the ratio variation, but this also isn’t really a big loss. Aside from that the cards the same.

First Impression:

The open box looks great and if your into Mario this is fairly eye-catching, it screams out impulse buy and would be at home on game shop counters as much as traditional outlets like Smiths and newsagents. There are three different designs for the packs with Mario and Luigi together, the Princess, and Mario alone.

It’s 6 cards per pack 24 packs per box and an RRP of 99p per pack. Licensed cards at pocket money prices, which is good because this set is aimed predominately at younger collectors and Mario gaming fans. It’s a 90 card basic set with a 24 card foil parallel set of Drivers cards.

We split the box and while we didn’t get a full set it was only 12 cards off, and out of the 12 parallels there was only one duplicate. When compared to other sets aimed at this demographic it preforms well in this regard. Don’t expect to finish a basic set from a box however, remember this is a retail only product and not a hobby box, so 12 cards short is pretty good going.

Unlike a lot of sets aimed at younger folks this one knows about its subject, and has been split down into several categories making it MUCH easier than most sets to collate. You have Drivers, Items, Karts, Tracks, and Tips. Each category is denoted on the front of the card by a small coloured triangle with the card type written in it. It looks good and it’s very helpful. 

Now I have to admit I have only played Mario Kart on the Wii perhaps twice, so I am no expert as such it would be completely unfair of me to judge these cards on anything but aesthetics, I felt unqualified. We had to find an expert, and thankfully we have just such a person here at Cult Towers.

After opening the box and putting the cards in order we called in we called in a specialist, someone with the knowledge we would need to be fair to this set:

We called Adam.

He’s very good at Mario Kart.

He’s not really into cards.

Typically he would rather spend money on cars than cardboard.

He’s 9.

I handed the cards to him and left the room, he had been given instructions to look at the cards, and tell me exactly what he thought of them when he was done. This wasn’t going to take long I was sure, 9 year olds have the attention span of a hyperactive fruit fly.

He spent more than half an hour in that room with those cards and to me anything that can hold a kids attention for that long and isn’t a TV or games console… well that’s impressive these days. I was surprised at how long he spent, but when I talked to him it was clear why. I asked him what he thought, and got some very interesting comments. Overwhelmingly positive, he understood the cost, and explained to me that while he played Mario Kart mostly on his DS some of the Wii tips could be used on both, so these cards could help him play the game. He was very much of the opinion that they were worth 99p and said he would spend his own money to buy them if he saw them in a shop, INSTEAD of hot-wheels or matchbox. For him that’s a fairly big endorsement.

I still wanted to know what he liked the most about the set however and he was torn, he said he couldn’t really decide between the Track cards and the Kart cards. He liked the Karts because not only do they have information about each vehicle, they also tell you how to unlock them for the game, (that was something he very much approved of). Equally however he enjoyed the track cards because they allowed him to see a good layout of the track, they tell you how to unlock it and give you tips on upcoming problems.  As he’s telling me these things I am finding it difficult to remember he’s 9 so I asked him about the card stock which to ME felt a little on the flimsy side (perhaps about a 280gsm?) to which he said…

“so what”

It’s hard to argue with logic like that, so I didn’t.

The rest of the set is rounded out with:

Drivers: These show you the driver with his/her/it’s Kart on the front with more information on the back including how to unlock the characters, and driving tips

Items: This runs through the different items available in the game, the fronts have a picture of the item the backs describe it’s effects and the tips tell you how best to use them, among other snippets of info.

Cups: These give you the low-down on all the cups you can race in on Mario Kart Wii, including all the tracks in each cup and what requirements you have to meet to unlock the more advanced cup tournaments.

In fact he liked the whole set, but I made him pick favourites.

At this point I will explain a little more about the guest reviewer, Adam. He is as I mentioned above is predominately a car guy (he has a subscription to Top Gear likes to back-seat drive) but he likes his Doctor Who as well, and in fact loves to watch both the new and old series. He knows his stuff, and so I thought  to myself, lets get a comparison going. I provided him with a folder that has a complete set of the new Panini Doctor Who cards, and told him to do exactly the same thing he had with the Mario cards, while keeping in mind that there are 260 Dr Who cards and they are half the price per pack.

He was done in under 10 minutes. Three times as many cards less than 1/3 of the time. I was a little surprised by that, I mean the Who cards are on much thicker card stock and they have spot point lamination! So I asked about them and he said they were nice, but after awhile they were basically the same. Expanding on this he said they were nice (he kept saying this, “they’re nice” with a sort of half disappointed tone in his voice) but they didn’t have anything about any of the old Doctors in (anything pre  10th Dr) which would have made them better, and more importantly, there was nothing to read on them, the backs are all basically blank. They might be half the price but less than half the work seems to have been put into them. So now I asked the important question:

I asked him very specifically if he had his own money and could buy these cards which would  go for: 1 Pack of Mario, or 2 pack of Who. It was Mario, the reason being he could use them for his game, and read them, and look at them, or as he put it:

“Mario, because….. I dunno, they’re just better”.

It really can’t get plainer than that. These cards are going to do well because they are thoughtfully designed, they are not just screen caps from a game, they also have information that is relevant AND useful which is something most sets these days seem to miss out on. I got the real impression that they cut things out of the set because they ran out of room, which is a nice change from some sets in which seem unable to find anything to say at all.

Adam didn’t seem all that interested in the foil cards because they were simply parallels of the basic cards already in the set, but as an adult I liked them, in the way that I like all shiny things. They are a nice addition to the set and they look good as well.

Overall it’s a well thought out and produced set which is going to do very well if Adams views are any indication, and personally I have to agree with a lot of what he thought.

I think this is one of the best introductory card sets I have seen in a long time. It’s aimed at a younger audience, an audience this hobby desperately needs to convert if it is going to survive, and thrive in the future. It’s taken a topic kids know (games) and made it useful and fun for them while still keeping the collectible aspect. I think it really helps that it’s only a 90 card basic set. That makes it so much more attainable, unlike many of these unwieldy sets made up of hundreds of cards and stickers the majority of youth aimed products seem to consist of. Nothing can kill the urge to collect more than the inability to ever complete a set.

It’s products like these that really can help the future of the card industry, by injecting new blood into already semi stagnant pool that is nonsports cards. Some may scoff but sets like these do more for our hobby than any 20 case incentive triple signed costume propagraph with a sketch on the back, ever will.

Now don’t get the wrong idea, these are not JUST for kids, they still have an appeal to adults, many of whom will have grown up with Mario. These are fun and affordable, and they are probably going to sell very very quickly. The UK release date is listed as Nov. 09 so they should be in shops any time now. My advice? Go buy some, if you like Mario or know someone who does then you will not regret it.

Adams advice? Well you may never know, I sent him to clean his room, because I like to be mean. I know he wants to put a set together however, and for a kid who normally spends all his money on toy cars and trains that’s an impressive change of direction.