| Rev up your engine, and get ready to roll! You’re behind the wheel of Nintendo Wii’s Excite Truck, and guess what’s up? This time, it’s not about a princess. It’s not about conquering some baddie. It’s not even about coming in first place to win the race. It’s about two words: Excite. Truck. You’re roaring down the road, doing tricks and spectacular leaps, and whether you’re alone or with a pal, you’re doing what you need to win. It might not sound like much on paper, but this ranks among the best Wii games available for 2006/2007! |  Available Through Amazon.com |
All right, let’s take a deep breath and look at what Excite Truck offers. For starters, it’s basically a racecourse game, the inevitable follow-up to the popular Excitebike, but this time with all terrain vehicles. There is no character to pick. It’s you and your truck—other options become available such as 4×4s, buggies, and SUVs—and you can choose any color of the rainbow for your new beast to come in. This game uses the standard Wii controller, but you hold it sideways.
There are four playing options: Excite Race, if you’re playing alone; Challenge, which features some mini-games; Versus, for two-player racing; and Tutorials, which is where beginners learn to drive, go turbo, jump, short-jump, do air spins, and more. You also need to get the hang of “drifting,” which is kind of a power-skid turbo thing, and you will be loving that turbo! Players should do the tutorial so they get the hang of holding the controller sideways as it does take a little getting used to. To play this game well you really need to understand the effects of tilts, from side to side and back and forth, and elbow action.
After the tutorials, you pick a Cup to challenge for and then a Country to race in, which determine the courses you’ll travel during the game. They range from fantastically easy to really difficult, and they include some terrific terrain such as the Atoll Hop, Scotland’s sylvan glen, Fiji’s beaches, Finland’s snowy mountains, all the way to the Great Wall of China! Each course offers its own challenges, whether it’s lava pouring toward you or huge boulders you have to crash through. Like all of the best Wii games, the scenery is quite beautiful in lots of places, although you’ll be going so fast you won’t really get to appreciate it.
What you will appreciate is the soaring in your soul when you master tricks like double and triple turns in mid-air or stretching out your hang time during a leap. This game isn’t about winning a cup—although you can. This is about getting the stars you need to win even if you come in last. Your goal is to unlock more and more options if you’re playing solo, or beat you’re buddy if you’re playing together. For example, you’re running behind your buddy, but you put your style and daring into action and crash through rocks and trees—that gets you more stars. If you’re going for speed, and you overheat, you splash into water to cool it down and then turbo back up. You won’t win this by being shy and polite! POW icons cause the scenery to morph into mountains for great jumps or drop down into the water, which you just might need for more of that turbo. Other icons give you bursts of speed that let you crash through forests.
The game offers some cool rock sounds for background music, but you can also download an MP3 player to an SD card if you have one for your own tunes. In the grand tradition of arcade-style racing games, this stands among the best Wii games ever. Nintendo recommends it for ages seven and older, and while kids love it, grandfathers will have a great time competing, too.