Excite Truck

"For the time it lasts, it sure is Exciting"

When you hear that a game is named “Excite Truck”, you would assume that it is exciting, and that it involves trucks. And, as far as this game goes, you would be right on both counts.

Before really starting to play Excite Truck, the game forces you to complete the first few tasks of the tutorial, the rest of which can be completed at a later time. The tasks you actually need to complete are fairly easy, and within 10 minutes or so, you can get in to the meat of the game, the Excite Race mode.

The Excite race is just that, a bunch of exciting races. Excite Truck differs from most racing games, in that you don't actually have to win the races to advance, but rather collect stars. Winning will of course help with the collection of stars, but the vast majority of stars will come from performing stunts, and the like. The stunts for which you earn stars include Truck Smashes, Big Airs, Drifts, Tree Runs, where you drive close to a series of trees without hitting them, and Air Spins. You earn more stars depending on how well the act was done. For example, while running your truck through a couple of trees might earn you a star or two, running through a “valley” of trees can earn you over 20 stars. Obviously, there is risk involved. Should you hit a tree, (Without power, which I will discuss later) you will crash, forcing you to rapidly press 2 before starting up again.

As for the actual racing itself, there are several features which differentiate Excite Truck from normal racing games. Perhaps the most notable is the ability to change the terrain. When racing through the courses, you will occasionally come across little ! symbols. Should you run over it, the course ahead of you will change dramatically, most often resulting in flat land turning into a ramp for you to jump off of. If there happen to be trucks driving over the land as it changes, they will be launched into the air, which can earn you up to 5 stars. The other power-ups you can collect are POW symbols, perhaps a not so subtle reference to the early Mario games. Upon collecting these, your truck is super powered for a little while. You will receive a boost in your speed, and even bumping another truck will cause it to crash, and result in 5 stars for you. In addition, you can safely travel alongside trees without fear of crashing. However, if you do run over a tree, you won't get credit for any further tree runs until the POW wears off.

The other main differential feature in Excite Truck is the massive jumps, taken from the Excite Bike games, after which this game is named. Upon getting into the air, pressing the 1 button will make a turbo jump, which sends you flying through the air. And that's a good thing. Time spent in the air will result in stars, and while flying, you can perform spins, which also give you stars. Different trucks will fly for different amounts of time, as they have different stats. Going along with the air stats are Speed, Grip, and Turbo, which tells you how much speed will be added by pressing the turbo button. Turbo is balanced out by the trucks temperature. As you hold down turbo, the temperature will rise, as indicated by the gauge in the bottom right. If the truck overheats, you won't be able to use turbo until you cool down. Trucks cool down faster in the air than on land, and they cool all the way down instantly upon hitting water, allowing you to hold the button to your hearts content while in water.

The races themselves take place on 21 courses in 7 locales. The main six Locales are: Finland, Mexico, Canada, Scotland, China, and Fiji, with one race taking place in outer space. Finland is a cold, watery locale, while Canada is a rugged, forested environment. The keen observers will notice that certain parts of tracks are used in multiple courses, often going in a different direction on each one. The length of the courses ranges from a 3 lap race in China which might take you 3 and a half minutes, to a 2 lap race in Canada which will take you 6 minutes if you're good.

The graphics for Excite truck are solid for a Wii game, though they could be better, surely. The game's music can be a little repetitive, as each locale has one song for all it's courses. Luckily, the game gives the option of using the music on your SD card, so you can't really complain.

In order to advance through the Excite Race mode, you need to acquire enough stars for a B ranking. 50 stars are given out for finishing in first, 25 for second, 15 for 3rd, and so on down the list. If you get a B ranking on all the courses in a cup, you will unlock the next one, with 4 cups in total. However, to unlock the extra difficulty levels, Super Excite and Mirror, you must S rank all the courses, which can be fairly difficult in and of itself. As you progress through the cups, you will unlock certain things. 10 races, or 3 S ranks with a truck will unlock its alternate paint job. A certain number of total races will unlock new trucks, although the game doesn't tell you how many are needed. Performing stunts worthy of 5 stars, or “super” stunts, will earn you trophies. You'll note that you get far many more trophies for Super Tree Runs than you do for Super Air Spins or Super truck Throws. The trophies really aren't worth going through the effort necessary to get them. There are also the challenges, little mini-games which hone your skills at jumping, crashing, and driving.

The problem is, once you get that stuff, there isn't much to do. Once you get all the trucks, there is little motivation to keep racing to get the trophies, as they don't offer much of the games signature excitement. The game could have benefited from a time-trial mode, where you could relax a little more and take in the detail they put into the courses. The multi-player can be fun, but sadly is only 2-player.

All in all, Excite Truck is a solid racing game, and it will definitely entertain you. It might not entertain for as long as an RPG, but it will not disappoint.

Gameplay 9/10
Graphics 8/10
Sound 9/10
Extras 5/10
Overall 8.5/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/19/07