Excite Truck Editor Review

Excite Truck brings arcade style racing to the Wii at breakneck speed!

Excite Truck was released as a launch title, even so the game has the potential to be one of the great classic arcade racing games for the Wii. As you probably are aware Excite Truck is the latest creation, whose origin stems back to Excitebike for the Nintendo Entertainment System, followed up by Exitebike 64 for the Nintendo 64.

While creating custom maps, allowing drivers to run rampant in a world of their own creation would have been a blast, that feature is one Excite Truck fans will have to do without. However the insane speed of nitrous-induced turbos and monolith air you can reach off many of the jumps have been kept fully intact, if not taken to a completely new level.



Graphics and Sound
The graphics in Excite Truck are rather mediocre compared to most games now a days. This is however quite typical for most arcade style racing games. When you travel at extremely fast speeds or heights like you do in Excite Truck the Wii is being forced to do quite a bit of work. Typically the graphics are toned down a bit to keep the framerate smooth. Which for the most part is very fluid

The way the levels are designed the environment feels very wide and open, allowing you a bit of freedom to take jumps in a multitude of ways. Crafted with great detail as to keep each course entertaining and unique. You are however prevented from going too far "off track" by floating arrows, as typical of many racing games.There are a number of different plant life creating lush locations destined to be pummeled under your tires.

Most of the trucks appear to be common trucks you might see at the dunes without anything too unique or unusual. You are luckily able to change the colors of the vehicle as occasionally certain backdrops may make it difficult to see. There are also special designs for each truck which can be unlocked after you win a set number of races with a specific truck.




Sadly, Excite Truck's soundtrack is nothing to get excited about. The audio mix consists of an extremely generic audio track lacking any vibrance. The soundtrack is mainly rock based and sounds rushed and muted. While it may seem hard to believe, using a few 3rd rate rock groups might have made for a better soundtrack. Luckly the actual ingame sound effects themselves aren't so out of place, so with the ability to drop a few MP3's onto your SD Flash Card the mundane Excite Truck soundtrack can be flipped into "the best soundtrack ever" aka whatever music you enjoy listening to.

Tutorial Mode
When you start Excite Truck for the first time, you will need to complete the Tutorial mode first. Personally, I dislike forced tutorial modes, such as those in Excite Truck which requires that you learn basic moves before even attempting to play the real levels. Even with a very basic understanding of the tutorial mode you will most likely be able to achieve a good ranking in most levels.




In Basics 1, you will learn how to steer your Truck and how to use turbo effectively. In addition, you will cover some basic jumping skills. In Basics 2, you learn more about turbo jumping and landing boosts, which help you gain extra hight by using the turbo before a jump, or an extra turbo for a solid landing. You are also introduced to Excite Trucks Terrain Morph feature, which literally reterraforms the land around you upon activation. Power Items are also covered. Now that the main gameplay features should be pretty well understood, the tutorial section turns to stunts.

In Stunts 1, you cover getting big air by using turbo jumps and proper angling. Drifting is covered here as well, which should be fairly simple to most racing fans. Air Rings, another way to gain points, have you throwing yourself through rings mid-air, as you speed across rocky terrain. Finally, Air Spins which allow you to gain points by holding down the D-pad and (1) and rocking the WiiRemote from left to right sending your truck into a 360 in mid-air.

In Stunts 2, Tree Runs, Truck Throws, Air Spins and Truck Smashes are covered. Tree Runs occur when you drive through a dense section of trees and don't crash. Thuck Throws are caused by terriform changes due to Terrain Morph pickups. Air Spins are covered again from Stunts 1, but you are required to pull a 720 instead of a 360. Truck Smashing gives you points for crashing into slower moving trucks.



Game Mode
So lets jump in the game already, shall we? The level breakdown is set into four teirs; Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. There are 19 maps overall with 4-5 levels a tier in the initial "Excite" Mode. Difficulty levels raise as you pass each teir, however the Excite Truck is never too difficult. Getting special class usually requires a bit of attentiveness and remember, it's required on each level in order to unlock Super Excite Mode later in the game. Initially the controls are rather difficult to get used to. At first it felt like the truck would overreacts to movements. A suggestion would be to use small movements at first since many will feel the steering is very tight.

-- GFX--

Overall, Excite Truck is a game game if you enjoy arcade style racing games. While the controls take some getting used to fans of the Excitebike series will find some of the flavor they were looking for. The ability to play your own music from an SD Flash Card was also a novel idea, and considering the soundtrack helped make the game more enjoyable. While not the best looking racing game in the looks department, Excite Truck packs enough punch to be a solid title with very few regrets.

Rating	Description
8	Presentation For a launch title Excite Truck puts on a great show, but not without a few flaws.
7	Graphics Well designed, lush courses with attractive scenery, at the occasional cost of a drop in framerate.
6.5	Sounds Generic rock music, thankfully you are able to listen to your own MP3's saved on a SD Memory Card.
8	Gameplay A blast to play. Extremely fast, edge of your seat racing, true to the Excite series.
7	Lasting Appeal Replay levels to achive higher ranking, which in turn unlocks new trucks, trophys and paintjobs.
7.8	OVERALL (out of 10 / not an average)

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