The playthings of the [Mario Kart] Gods

You may have noticed from one of my previous posts that I quite like a bit of gaming, and though I'm not as mental about it as I was back in the 90's, it still takes up a bit of my time. I have a Wii, and the disk stuck in it most of the time is Mario Kart Wii.

For those not aware, this version of the game has online play, meaning you can have up to 12 people racing with each other, which if you choose to can be any random assortment of people from around the world. Each player has a score they keep between races that starts at 5000 and goes up if you win races and goes down if you lose them. As the score works its way towards 9999 (the top limit) the points for winning decrease but the points deducted for finishing down the order go up. As you can imagine, the final 1000 points are a bit of a basket to achieve.

This was made harder last night, as during a bit of a play my little group of racers was joined by a guy who called himself Alwin. The first warning sign was that he had a score of 35000, but I didn't really notice that at the start. What did make me sit up and take notice was when the race started and he showed his ability to acquire and use items at will. He could throw multiple blue shells. He could throw multiple bombs, false powerups and red/green shells. He could grow to twice the size he should be able to with a mega mushroom and also become invincible. It seemed that far from being limited to the quazi-random selection of items a normal player gets, he could just choose whatever he wanted.

In short, he was unstoppable.

But he didn't race. Instead he gleefully went around (as Baby Peach in a Cheep Charger) throwing all he could at people, sometimes holding them on the spot by using a star and then detonating multiple bombs in front of him so anyone caught in the blast wouldn't have a chance to get away. When he noticed that someone was getting ahead of him he let off a pair of blue shells and then set off as one of those bullet things to go get them. We eventually finished the race, but it was a complete lottery who finished first.

Regardless of where Alwin finished, his score was reduced by 2500 points, which was good because it meant the rest of us were given a share of this to boost our totals, so it was kind of enjoyable, but my cozy little Mario Kart world had just been turned upside down.

I'd love to know what the hell went on over that half-dozen races, I can only assume that either there is some secret to unlock once you have earned all 3 stars from reaching 9999 points, or this was a Nintendo employee having some fun, or someone has worked out how to hack into it. There is at least one other out there, going by the name of 'evil pipi' who had a score of 10000, and did much the same thing later on that night.

Does anyone out there have any experience of these people? Has anyone experienced Alwin or any of his compatriots before or since? Best of all, could anyone tell me how to do it? :)