Review: Excite Truck

Developed by the studio Monster Games (more known for their NASCAR-themed titles), Excite Truck is all about hurtling an off-road vehicle through a course, collecting “stars” and pulling off massive air and death-defying tricks.

In a throw-back to the classic title Excitebike for the NES and N64, Excite Truck features some ideas and concepts that some of the older gamers will recognise. Players use their turbo-fuelled vehicles to perform amazing acrobatics by flying off all sorts of ramps. If turbo is used too much, the truck’s engine will overheat, causing the truck to stall. In order to cool the truck down, one must either be lean on the turbo until the engine cools off, drive through a puddle, or jump off a ramp.

Controlling the vehicles in-game is a little different to the conventional controller method too – the Wii remote is held sideways. To steer the truck, you tilt the remote from side–to-side like a mini steering wheel, applying acceleration and braking via the nearby “1 & 2” buttons. After finishing the training levels, both single and multiplayer modes are available. You first start with only three selectable trucks: the Boulder, the Firefly, and the Wolf. You can unlock additional trucks by reaching various benchmarks.

As far as stunts go, Excite Truck gives “star” awards for performing tricks such as flying through a set of airborne rings after making a jump, smashing into other trucks, narrowly missing trees, performing spins in the air, and drifting. The game adds each stunt performed to a tally and once the player pulls off the stunt enough times, he or she unlocks a trophy or some other prize.

Two noteable features come to mind – Excite Truck is the first Wii game to let people select music in the form of MP3’s from a SD card to the game to be played in the background while they are playing instead of the music provided by the game. The game also supports split screen two player multiplayer.

Overall, the races are very frantic and challenging – this style of gameplay will bring gamers in droves but the title lacks any actual longevity. Once the single player campaign is finished and you’re sick of beating all your mates in the multiplayer, there’s no new content to keep you coming back. Plus, the omission of online play is another no-no in our books. Excite Truck may not be in the same league as other must-buy Wii games such as Zelda, but it’s definitely worth a look for the gameplay alone.

Developer- Monster Games

Publisher- Nintendo

Classification- G

Formats- Nintendo Wii

URL- Excite Truck