With
its mixture of arcade and off-road racing, Nintendo's ExciteTruck for the
Wii is an immensely playable and addictive driving game. The game is all
about speed, with massive boosts, jumps and ever-changing terrain keeping
players on their toes. It utilizes the Wii controller effectively with
unique control system allows precise steering, body English and stunts to
be performed easily. Multiple play modes include both solo and multiplayer
games, with challenge and standard arcade modes included. It's not the
deepest game you'll ever play, but ExciteTruck delivers a thrilling racing
experience that shows off the Wii brilliantly.
ExciteTruck doesn't take long to suck in
the player, with an addictive mix of speed, challenge and fun. This is an
arcade-style racer at heart, and as such it doesn't need much of a
learning curve. You can immediately feel the difference Wii's controller
makes, since you merely need to tilt it to steer the vehicle. It takes
some getting used to, and it's not as precise as you'd think, but the
responsiveness is good enough, and any detraction this method causes is
more than compensated for with the increased tactile feedback. The
controls seem odd initially, but quickly becomes intuitive and second
nature. During the race, you can control the angle of your trucks easily,
and this extends to the trucks while airborne. Twisting the controller
allows you to change the angle of your landing, while tilting it up or
down lets you control the angle your land on. It's a subtle method that's
probably not immediately noticeable, but it makes a huge difference in how
the game plays. During each race, you can implement a speed boost by
pressing down on the Wii's cross-pad controller, this makes you move
faster but you need to be careful since over-use can cause your engine to
overheat, which slows you down. While the courses are fairly open, they
all have barriers that you can't cross. Doing so puts you out of bounds
and you'll have to reset your position which costs you valuable time and
puts a serious crimp in your style. You also need to be careful not to
crash into things while jumping and avoid contact with other racers,
unless you think you can destroy. However, you can earn stars for
collisions, if they are spectacular, but the time lost makes it harder to
win races and move forward. You begin with a limited number of trucks and
vehicles to choose from, but you can unlock more by winning races,
completing cups and finishing the challenge races.
What's more interesting about this
approach is that the racing involves more than going from start to finish.
While you're rewarded for finishing first, your main goal during each race
is to earn stars. These can be collected in a variety of ways: by
drifting, making big jumps, going through rings, smashing into opponents
and other things. Each race has a minimum requirement of rings, and you
need this number to pass through to the next level. Excitetruck's includes
several levels of racing, which can only be unlocked by completing all the
races on the previous level. The levels themselves are surprisingly fluid.
At the early stages, start off relatively simply, but players can affect
the course layout by hitting special icons which cause the levels to
change forms immediately. When hit, there's usually an explosion that
causes a massive jump and accompanying rings to rise out of nowhere. This
makes the gameplay less predictable and more challenging, and is an
ingenious way of keeping players on their toes throughout. Each course
provides a variety of obstacles, such as deep water, trees and mountains
that need to be avoided. Crashing into other vehicles or going off the
track is another way to penalize the player, but makes the gameplay all
the more challenging. You'll face off against dozens of opponents, and
they're fairly aggressive. Excite Truck requires players to experiment
with the best routes and methods to maximize their score.
Unlike
many other racing titles on the market, ExciteTruck doesn't pretend to be
a simulation and instead focuses on the action. The gameplay is made more
fun by its exaggerated physics where the trucks can perform massive jumps,
spin in the air and boost to almost unreal speeds with very little effort.
This is still plenty of collision detection, and you'll crash into objects
and other vehicles, but the game doesn't punish you for this. In fact,
after a crash, pressing down on the button increases your boost meter,
which allows you to catch up very quickly. Each race is timed, so you need
to keep pace or you'll be disqualified. The game is surprisingly easy to
learn and should be accessible to both newcomers and veteran players
alike. Speaking of veteran players, those who remember the NES days will
be happy to know that this is loosely based on Nintendo's classic
ExciteBike, this quasi-update brings several new elements to the
traditional gameplay while keeping many aspects of the original intact
such as the boosting, massive jumps and overheating. The simple,
straightforward gameplay is another throwback to the first Excite title,
and Excitetruck definitely has some of the old magic. There's definitely a
mixture of old and new here, which makes the game enjoyable on so many
levels.
One of things you've probably heard
repeated again and again is the fact that Wii is less powerful than some
of its competitors in this generation. Judging by the graphics and slick
visuals in Excitetruck, the system is more than capable of creating an
excellent visual experience. The game's frame rate is incredibly fast, and
the levels themselves are quite detailed with different environmental
effects such as water, snow and ice along with weather like rain and snow
which adds some realism to the game. The trucks themselves look fairly
decent as well, and while the game can't match the absolute realism of
some other titles, its still a solid performer from an aesthetic
standpoint. A hard-rock soundtrack compliments the action nicely, though
it does tend to get distracting at points, though not enough to ruin the
experience. Overall, ExciteTruck is a superb launch title that showcases
the Wii in fine form. The controls seem a little bit iffy at first, but
once you get used to them, the game becomes intuitive and fun.
Action-packed racing with multiple power-ups, morphing courses and open
paths keeps things addictive and challenging, while not making things
overly complex. There aren't as many extra modes as in other racing games,
but the instant play action makes the replay value high. This is a
must-own title, since its emphasis on fun and entertainment makes
ExciteTruck one of the most enjoyable, accessible Wii launch titles.
- Michael Palisano
Grade: B
