More Articles on Excite Truck
Excite TruckNintendo Europe Confirms 2007 For WarioWare/Excite TruckCustom Soundtracks For Excite Truck
User Reviews
There are currently 0 User Reviews for Excite TruckWrite your own review for this game today and you will receive 100 Gamer Points.
Click here to register
Excite Truck Mini Review
Chris Leyton
16/02/2007
Excite Truck provides instant thrills but it won't keep you going during the long wait for the next Wii title...
Nintendo's choice of titles seems appropriate for the latest game to arrive on the Wii. Dubbed a spiritual successor to a game that many will fondly recall on the 21-year old NES, Excite Truck is a no-holds barred, extreme, off-road racer that replaces dirt bikes with 4x4's. Racing through the eye of a hurricane, leaping over the Great Wall of China and drifting around glaciers, Excite Truck has all the right ingredients for an instantly enjoyable arcade racer, although there's some serious doubts over whether it will leave you waggling your Wii Remote for long.
On initial inspection, it's hard to get too excited about the latest title from Nintendo and development partner Monster Games. Ignoring the heritage, Excite Truck seems to offer little more than a routine racing experience that closely follows the Super Mario Kart model: compete in a series of races grouped into Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum categories to unlock new tracks, vehicles, paint jobs and increased difficulty.
Please Hold The Wii Remote In A Horizontal Position
Using the Wii Remote as a makeshift steering wheel, Excite Truck fails to convince us that it's a significant improvement to the traditional joypad when it comes to racing titles. Although more enjoyable than the third-party racing titles that launched alongside the Wii, we're still not convinced that the loose feeling you get when using the Wii Remote like this will suit the slightly more sophisticated racer. Fortunately, Excite Truck is about as far removed from such a racing sim as you could possibly imagine; immense speed and insane jumps are the rule, you'll spend just as much time racing through the air as you do on the ground.
Holding the Wii Remote sideways, Excite Truck is a game that rarely requires lifting your finger from the accelerator button. Instead, the principal skill to master is the liberal application of the d-pad to activate the trademark boost. Staying faithful to the original, it has to be used sparingly to avoid the engine from overheating, however, careful taps of the d-pad after a jump will launch you into the sky with a 'Turbo Jump', or scream around a corner in a 'Drift'. Tilting the pad steers the vehicle on the ground, whilst you can also change its orientation in the air by tilting it sideways, forwards, or backwards. This comes in particularly useful, as landing with all the tires on the ground will grant a 'Nice Landing' speed bonus, reflecting the controls and challenge of the original Excitebike.
Driving School
It's not necessarily about crossing the finishing line first, instead the challenge is to reach a certain score by the end of the race. Stars are awarded for performing various different techniques during the race, such as gaining air; performing a drift; racing in between trees; spinning in the air; launching your vehicle through a series of rings or simply ramming an opponent from the track - the more outrageous the stunt the more points you'll receive.
Escalating the extreme nature of the game, icons on the track will abruptly transform the terrain in front of you, raising hills in a split second, or carving valleys with godly power. The trick is to collect these as an opponent is moving across the area, flipping them into the air and gaining a 'Truck Throw' bonus in the process. Although it's a fun element and adds to the intensity of the game, the fact that you're never on the receiving end because computer-controlled opponents cannot do the same reduces the effect and seems like a wasted opportunity.
Largely based upon derivative themes, the levels are nonetheless generally well designed for the context of the game with a sufficient amount of freedom and alternative paths. The noticeable elastic band AI is unlikely to find too many fans, although it does at least ensure the races remain competitive and keep you hooked during their short duration. There's a slight element of skill and depth usually found lacking in arcade racers from the challenge of combo-ing jumps together, along with finding the rhythm of performing a 'Turbo Jump' and following with a 'Nice Landing' to maintain a constant speed boost bonus. When Excite Truck is like this, running at a pace that will blow open your eyeballs, its actually a lot of fun; the only problem is, it won't last for long!
Second Hand Value
The initial 'Excite' mode won't hold too much of a challenge for most and you'll find yourself racing through all the tracks in a small number of hours. The challenge stems from achieving an 'S' ranking on each course to unlock the 'Super Excite' difficulty and eventually the 'Mirror Race' mode; however, the appeal of racing around the same tracks for little reward offers little incentive in the long term.
A 'Challenge' mode with a variety of Gate, Ring and Crush objectives provides a little bit of extra substance, although the appeal is negligible and it's unlikely to keep your interest once the main game begins to wave. Excite Truck also features a two-player splitscreen 'Multiplayer' option, which provides a little more entertainment, though we can't help but feel that an option for four players would have really helped the game out.
Realising that long-term appeal and depth is never going to be easy to achieve, Nintendo have focussed on delivering an instantly entertaining experience, which it accomplishes quite effectively in an overly excessive manner.
Although there's a handful of aspects that lift Excite Truck above being just another run-of-the-mill arcade racer, the overall feeling is that this is a game we've seen too many times before whilst the novelty of the Wii Remote soon wears off and there's little to sustain your interest beyond a few hours. Wii owners looking for something new would be better off renting this for a weekend.
Anonymous
Date Added:Sat 16th Jun 2007 20:17
Anonymous
Date Added:Mon 30th Apr 2007 12:23
Anonymous
Date Added:Mon 30th Apr 2007 12:20
Anonymous
Date Added:Mon 30th Apr 2007 12:18
Anonymous
Date Added:Mon 30th Apr 2007 11:57
Anonymous
Date Added:Tue 14th Nov 2006 21:24