GamePro recently had a chance to sit down and give Mario Kart Wii a test drive, and were unsurprisingly very impressed. Some quick details:

• Core gameplay hasn’t changed at all, (power-sliding and whatnot).
• There will be five different control schemes, only one featuring the Wii Wheel.
• 12-player online play, 4-player split screen offline play, and 2-players can play on the same Wii console online.
• Grand Prix, Time Trial, Versus, and Battle mode are all confirmed.
• There are 12 playable characters including: Baby Mario, Baby Peach, Toad, Koopa Troopa, Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Princess Peach, Wario, Waluigi, Donkey Kong and Bowser.

That’s a lot of info, but all of it excellent news. Other things to note: 50cc kart speed is restricted to go karts only. 100cc and 150cc speeds feature bikes alongside go karts. Also, the POW block is making it’s item debut in Mario Kart Wii.

But the biggest news coming from GamePro’s experience with the game was the unveiling of the Mario Kart Wii Channel. Basically it’s designed to keep track of a plethora of different stats and offers the ability to upload and download ghosts. Plus, Nintendo is supposedly planning all sorts of downloadable content post-release. Now that leaves us with the question that seems to rear it’s ugly head periodically nowadays: Where is it all going to go?

GamePro