Excite Truck for Nintendo Wii

Excite Truck is the sequel to the 1985 classic Excitebike. Yeah, you're right, it is a lot different than the NES game. Heck, it's like saying that Madden NFL 2007 is the sequel to a little game that came out the same month and year as Excitebike by the name of Baseball. There is almost nothing that is similar to Excitebike in this, other than the fact that you catch a lot of air. It feels like they had the game developed and just tacked the name Excite Truck to it to generate sales.

Excite Truck is the perfect example of what you would show someone who was curious to know what an arcade racer was. The game gives you ridiculous air, extremely quick gameplay, and the feeling that you are about to hit something at all times. Excite Truck, if it weren't for some major downfalls, could have been one superb racer. It's really too bad that it isn't what it could have been, but the game is still a lot of fun, but its a pretty much worthless purchase.

Story you ask? Well, like many other racing games, this game just consists of some races to complete in which you can replay to get better times. When you're done with those races you've technically beat the game. You're probably thinking that that's okay, but it just better have a lot of diverse levels and the game better give you a killer multiplayer mode. Funny that you should think that, for that's exactly what this game lacks!

Honestly, with the extreme lack of content, this game feels more like a tech demo than a full fledged game. It's basically Yoshi: Touch and Go on the Wii. There is a main mode to the game that you will be playing. Oddly enough, this mode has no other name than Excite Race, which is a terribly inaccurate name, considering it isn't just one race. That's technically the name, but it's more of a code name, the main mode really doesn't have a real name. How mysterious! Wait, perhaps the developers were just too tired to think of a cool name. There are nineteen races to compete in. Foolish earthlings! Nineteen races doesn't mean nineteen different levels. You actually expect your developers to put some effort in their game? There are six levels that are repeated several times! Muahaha! Not only are there so few levels, but all of them feel like the exact same thing. They're all just an open track with tons of jumps and a million trees you have to avoid. So the first level you play feels like the other five, which means that the nineteen tracks of the main mode feel like the exact same level. Sorry if there was a lot of math involved in the previous paragraph.

Alright, so far, I haven't represented the game as being such a great one. Let me just tell you that playing the game is actually a lot of fun! You must tilt your Wiimote left and right to steer your truck. As you go through the track you will be hitting jumps and getting, well, hundreds of feet of air. No one said this wasn't a silly game. Needless to say, the physics engine is a little off. Alright, it makes your truck seem like it weighs less than a hundred pounds and has an airplane engine and wings on it. The game is extremely fast paced, and they put a ton of obstacles in your way. Even though this was a launch title, the controls in this are better than all of the other racing games I've played on the Wii, and I've played the majority. It's actually a fun way to play the game, and if it were on another system, I can't see it being nearly as fun. I don't find myself constantly frustrated because I can't find the center of balance anymore! I actually feel like I'm driving the thing because it's not swerving all around the road. While it may be better than the rest, the control scheme isn't perfect. There still is some frustration that comes with the controls but it's definitely not nearly as bad as the other Wii games. The nature of the game, since it's so fast with so many obstacles was a daring one with the questionable Wii control scheme, but they pulled it off. You do always feel like you are going to lose control and swerve off the road and hit a tree, but most of the times you can maneuver your way around perfectly.

As you go through the levels you can do tricks to get boosts and points. You'll constantly be doing air boosts, drifting, maneuvering through trees, and smashing other cars to be able to get that extra boost and increase the amount of points you get for the race. You need a certain amount of points for every race, but sometimes the boost can be a little annoying because it will propel you straight towards ye olde tree.

One thing, oddly enough, about this game that is wrong is that the opponents sometimes tend to cheat. I remember seeing this in some of the PC racing games that came out early this millennium. For the harder levels, you can be way ahead and somehow your opponents just suddenly catch up to you. On the easier levels you can wait ten seconds at the starting line after your opponents start and catch up with them easily. It feels like they slow down for you to pass them. At the end of the easy levels the opponents seem to slow down dramatically to give you the win. At the end of the harder levels the opponents speed up dramatically.

Multiplayer is decent in the game, but is limited to two player split screen. If they would have waited to release this for online play, it would have been a blast. The multiplayer plays just like the single player, which automatically makes it pretty fun. Aside from the main mode which you will be playing the most, the game also features a challenge mode. The challenge mode has a few different challenges, like running through gates or rings, but the core gameplay feels identical to the main mode, only less competitive because it's not a race. You'll probably spend a few minutes on this mode and then get on with your life.

All in all, this game is extremely fast, extremely arcady, and most importantly, it's a very fun racing game. However, getting through the nineteen levels of the main mode will take you about two hours, two and a half tops! And not only is it short, but it is very easy. After that, you can play through the game on a harder difficulty, but the repetition will have already started to make you go slightly insane. It's an absolutely perfect rental, it just needed something extra to be worth a purchase. Right now, for fifty bucks, you get a two hour walk in the park and then it will sit on your shelf forever. After playing through the main mode, (which I refuse to call Excite Race) there's really nothing the game has to offer. You can go back to get perfect scores on the levels, but there's no big reward to that other than earning stupid trophies that you can't do anything with. You can unlock new trucks, but the trucks you start off with aren't that much worse than the ones you unlock at the very end.

The graphics in the game are good, but definitely don't push the Wii's limit. There are a ton of textures and most of them aren't repeated between levels which is great because every level looks completely different than the rest. The game's got a real cartoony look to it, like games such as Outrun 2, but it isn't afraid to show some realism and shininess in the textures. The game plays at 480P which is great to know, but this would definitely not be the first game to run and get to show off your new tv. It will look almost just as good on a regular TV. The frame rate, like most Wii games is super smooth. While I have experienced a bit of slowdown once or twice, the game definitely has a smooth frame rate.

The sound in the game is, well… sucky, (sorry to burst out the vocabulary). While playing, the music generally always muffles out most of the SFX. They made it like that because the SFX sounds are so poor. Weak engine noises and crash sounds is really all you are going to hear. They're so poorly done that when you hit a hundred foot jump and get a giant boost of fire when you land, your truck makes about as much noise as a new luxury car going thirty miles an hour. What's worse is that the music is just awful. It's a ton of cheesy guitar riffs that go all over the place. After about ten seconds you'll turn down the volume. Luckily you can take your Wii SanDisk card and stream your own music while playing the game.

The game is definitely suitable for kids. The game is rated E for everyone and has nothing explicit about it. Except for some intentional car crashes, there is no violence. No language, no blood, and no sexual content.

So should you buy this game? No! Should you rent this game? Yes. The game isn't perfect, and it certainly is short, but it's still a ton of fun to play. Go out and rent this game as fast as you can! You'll have a blast for a few days and probably return it before your five days are up.

And now, after much research, I leave you with a few quotes that explain why the main mode of the game has such an uncool name, if you can even consider it a name:

From Metal Gear Solid, (they're obviously playing a game of Excite Truck in this scene and are at the main menu):
Meryl: What's your name? Your real name?
Solid Snake: Name means nothing on the battlefield.


The following quote was written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the character that is talking is obviously Excite Truck:

Ah! replied my gentle fair, Beloved, what are names but air? Choose thou, whatever suits the line: Call me Sappho, call me Chloris, Call me Lalage, or Doris, Only, only, call me thine.


Well there you have it! The mode shall be called Doris! Rent this game now!


Graphics – 7
Audio – 3
Gameplay - 8
Controls - 7.5
Fun – 9.0
Value – 3.5
Overall: 7.2