Excite Truck

"From two wheels to four."

The old-school Nintendo buffs are likely to remember Excitebike. The classic "racing" game had you on a motocross bike, and you had to beat the clock to get at least third place in order to continue. It required well-positioned landings of very high jumps and proper use of your turbo, making sure not to overheat. It was pretty straightforward. The Nintendo 64 game "Excitebike 64" paid homage to the original game in many ways, keeping the motocross theme and the turbo strategy while adding a more "lifelike" sports flavor. Oh, and it was 3-D. Now at the launch of the Wii, Nintendo is returning to the franchise for the third time. But this time around they're driving down a different road...and on four wheels.

"Excite Truck" takes some of the elements of the original Excitebike and mixes it with a whole new flavor. Rather than motorbikes, you drive one of a selection of off-road vehicles--pickups, 4WD's, jeeps, and other off-road vehicles. And rather than being restricted to a small motorcross track, you race through large sections of various international locales, such as Mexico, Fiji, China, and Finland. But you will still depend on well-positioned landings of very high jumps and proper use of your turbo, making sure not to overheat.

The game makes use of the Wii's motion-sensitive controller by making it act like a steering wheel. You hold the Wii remote horizontally and, keeping the buttons pointed upward, you tilt it as though you were steering your truck. It also adjusts the pitch when in midair so you can get it back onto all four wheels. The 1 and 2 buttons act as the brake and accelerator (respectively), and the control pad acts as your turbo. And if a situation occurs where you go the wrong way or get stuck, it may prompt to press the A button. Granted, the bare essential controls are easy to learn. But the in-game interactive tutorials will teach you the real tricks to doing well, and I highly suggest players to look into them to really get the knack of the controls.

There are a limited number of modes in this game, most of them designed for just one player. The main mode is Excite Race. In this mode, you must earn the required number of stars to clear the track, and clearing all the tracks clears the cup and opens the next one. To earn stars you need to perform different achievements like catching big air, drifting, and crashing into the other trucks. Is it required that you get first place in each track? No, but it does score you a really big star bonus. The tracks also have "!" icons scattered that manipulate the terrain, causing new ramps, rings, and disasters to appear. Plus, "POW" icons appear that turn your vehicle into a supercharged crusher, able to plow through trees and vehicles for a limited time.

The Challenge mode tests your driving abilities and also grades your performance with stars. There are three challenge types with two locations each. The first requires you to drive through illuminated "gates," and you need to make sure not to miss any in order to keep time on the clock. The second requires you to drive through a number of rings. Each time you are successful, the rings will be worth more, but also become smaller. The third has you driving through a free area with a supercharged truck, and you need to crash into the five other trucks as quickly as possible. All three events reward bonus stars for remaining time, but don't depend solely on that to reach good grades!

Then there's the Versus mode, which is for two players. In this mode, you and an opposing player race to get the most stars. You can select from the vehicles and tracks you unlocked in Excite Race, and the "!" and "POW" icons are available to mix up the action. What's discouraging about this mode is that the two human-controlled players are the only vehicles in this mode, not to mention that only two can play in this mode. And because there's no online play, you can only play against local rivals. But it still does its job well: providing an intense head-to-head off-road race for you and a friend.

The graphics in the game are nice to look at. They aren't going to be the best graphics in the virtual world, mind you, but it's adequate enough to provide some fast-paced action while still keeping it from looking "last-gen." The framerate does sometimes swap from a very smooth 60 fps (frames per second) to a relatively smooth 30-ish fps depending on the amount of details in the viewing render area. But the slight change in framerate does not take away from the intense action you always see on screen, and that's always a good thing. Different locales may have the environment in rainy or snowy weather, which can consequently drop the frame rate a bit, and yet the races still feel very fast and intense. (For a moment of insight, seeing as the versus mode always looks like 30 fps with just the two vehicles I can only imagine that's the reason why more cars weren't added--making the frame rate so choppy or slow it would worsen the experience...)

As for sound, it does its job too. I've heard someone say that some of the vehicles sound like souped-up lawnmowers, and I can second that. But the high-octane effects and environmental shifting sounds do well for the experience. As for music, many people say that the game's original soundtrack isn't exactly the best in the world. That's really depending on a person's tastes, but thankfully you aren't restricted to the music selection. The developers added the ability for players to use MP3's on an inserted SD card as the game's soundtrack instead (it will recognize up to 100 on its list). You can choose to play those at random or select a particular song. The interesting thing is that the game will remember which song selection you chose for each track, meaning if you were using the same SD card and chose to race a particular track which you had set to only play "Doodle dee.mp3" last time, it will remember to only play "Doodle dee.mp3." Very nice if you REALLY want a customized soundtrack for courses.

So how long does the experience last? As usual, it depends on how deep you want to get into the game. If you're planning on just winning all the tracks with decent A & B grades, it may not take much time at all. But you will be very busy if you decide to go for the coveted S grade on all tracks and challenges, as well as unlocking all the vehicles and alternate paint jobs, and all the trophies as well. Beyond the standard Excite Race and Challenge modes, you'll have the Super versions of each to contend to if you do well, and they're bound to give you a hard time. It may not have very many modes, but the game is compelling and challenging enough to keep you playing, in the famous "didn't quite make it, let's try one more time" kind of way. It's not a very realistic racer, so fans of games like Gran Turismo may be turned off at the lack of real vehicles and true-to-life physics. But that's not what the original Excitebike was famous for either.

It really is a game you have to try (or at least see) before you decide to buy. It's not going to be everyone's first choice for a Wii purchase, what with all the bigger names (Zelda, Call of Duty, Red Steel, etc.) released around the same time. But it certainly shouldn't be ignored, as it's a good quick-session racing game that could have you coming back for more.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/27/06