Okay. Online is awesome. Yeah no way to communicate in random matches. But with friends there a ton of preselect words and phrases and sentences that pretty much covers anything. Still no chatting but sure beats Brawls taunt system.
When you play online you can choose to play with anyone or with friends. When you play with anyone you can choose either a regional or worldwide pool of players. It get you into a game in 20 seconds. So there is no waiting for everyone to get ready. Also if a friend is playing in a random match you can join the game they are in.
Of course you can make private games with friends only. Standard stuff. The cool part though, something not present in Smash, is you can add your friend's friend to your roster.
Also random matches are ranked. You gain points or lose points depending how well or bad you do. You can then match up to players around your skill level. There is battle mode with the ballons too.
Another online mode is tournament. Not sure what this is like yet. Basically Nintendo sets up the tournament at certain times and you suppose to be sent a message when its time to register. It is ranked also.
My favorite mode though, one I have spent the last 3 hours playing, is time trial ranking. This is really competitive. Basically you post your best times online, and you get to see where you stand regional and worldwide. There is a top ten as well. The cool part is you can download people's ghost data and race them. Also you can watch or race the ghost data of the person who is number one. It also sets you up with a rival, someone who's time is just a little better than yours, to see if you can beat them. I really love this mode.
Another cool thing is the number karts and bikes you can select from per character. Also, there is a nice blend of new tracks and old tracks. Which is weird playing on the SNES tracks because they look just like they did in SNES. What I mean the tracks still feel 2D but with depth perception, if that makes any sense.
Oh, the wheel is awesome! I feel more comfortable doing drifting and mini turbos with the wheel.
Solid game so far. I need to unlock secret bikes, karts, characters and tracks. Funky Kong is in the game.