Recommended: Mario Kart Wii

My younger daughter's tricycle is named The Red Racer. It's a fitting name. The trike looks old-school, with fire-engine red paint and shiny chrome accents. I don't remember how we came up with the name, but we've always called it The Red Racer.

I recently asked her what I should name my bike. I suggested The Crimson Avenger, since it is also red. My older daughter, who has a bike named Goldie, liked that idea. But her younger sister vetoed it. Her suggestion: Mario Kart Wii.

Strange name for a Diamondback BMX. Even stranger considering it was suggested by a 3 year old.

But, it makes more sense when you consider how we passed many long nights last winter: playing, you guessed it, Mario Kart Wii. My wife and I are big kart racing fans, so we were eager to pick up the latest installment of the Nintendo classic for ourselves. But, needless to say, when our kids saw the brightly colored packaging adorned with the likes of Mario and Peach, they wanted in.

We let them race a few laps with us and it was a disaster. They were driving the wrong way, crashing into walls, and having a miserable time. Clearly, this wasn't a game for young kids.

But after a few weeks with the game, my wife and I tried Battle Mode -- a type of game where your team drives around in a large open environment trying to gather more coins than the opposing team, or trying to pop more of the opposing team's balloons.

Battle mode, with it's wide-open spaces, seemed like a good option for the kids. In battle mode, there were no tracks to drive the wrong way on and no getting left behind. Players simply cruise around, jumping off things, and crashing into each other. So, we let them take a crack at it.

Two things happened during those action-packed free-for-alls.

• My wife and I had a blast trying to beat the opposition with a severely handicapped team. At first, we got romped. But eventually, we improved enough to make the games competitive.
  
• The girls were slowly learning the basics of the game -- especially my 5 year old. After a few nights of playing, she started to grasp the controls and the objective. Before long, she was less of a handicap and more of a secret weapon. Meanwhile, my 3 year old was having a great time driving around, launching the occasional turtle shell.
  

By playing in Battle mode, Mario Kart Wii went from being an adults-only affair to a highly recommended whole-family mulitplayer experience. We had a ton of laughs.

Granted, now it's summer and the days are long. Mario Kart Wii the game rarely gets played. But Mario Kart Wii the bike regularly rolls down the sidewalk alongside The Red Racer and Goldie. And that's just fine. Winter is always right around the corner.