N-Philes

Excite Truck

Posted November 29th 2006 by Jared Thomas.

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While it obviously makes the game what it is, the unique control method suffers very barely by lacking a sense of tangible control that a control stick delivers. Ninety-nine percent of the time the controls are as responsive as you would hope for, but even the remote chance that the car might not respond accurately to your laughable gesticulations is enough to harbor a frustrating doubt in the back of your mind that won't go away. Not only do you fear the moment when it's all on the line and for no reason the controller just doesn't do what you're pretty sure it was supposed to do, but you also know that every time that one torturously competitive guy loses a race he's going to scapegoat the controller even though both of you know he just failed due to disparity of skill, or by Random Video Game Luck which decides the outcome of probably 80% of gaming bouts.

While cruising your truck over landscapes that would be outlandish even in an American SUV commercial, you'll be jamming to obnoxious MIDI metal that growls on from the opening screen until forever. It doesn't even reset if you cut a race short to retry; the guitar just keeps shreddin' like it's 1979. It sounds like a fairly competent blend of annoying arcade racer music like Daytona USA and riffs from a Black Sabbath tribute band. Some tracks very clearly sample popular rock riffs, such as ACDC's "Back in Black" as heard in the China level. Just wait for it, it's unmistakable. Whenever it plays I have a deep urge to air guitar and mouth the tune from then on, and then wish the game used licensed music until I remember that licensed music in video games is just annoying. Rather than using friendly music to at least outstretch a hand to refined types, Excite Truck opts instead to throw the horns as a declaration to either grow a handlebar mustache or play a different game. There is, of course, an option to jam to your own MP3s using the SD card slot, if you want to be that way about it.

There are a few Challenge modes offered here, in which you race the clock either crashing into as many free-roaming cars as possible, jumping through as many rings as possible, or racing through a slalom-style course. Such events follow in the vein of such challenges as "I can eat fifty eggs" – technically they are all categorized as "challenges", but it's not really fun since the actual game embodies all these events in a holistic experience that by contrast makes the individual activities seem pointless and boring. Another sore spot is that when you play 2-player against someone who is something less than a one-man party, you might feel a pang of disappointment that they are the only other racer on the course; the multiplayer gives no computer-controlled racers as buffers for what otherwise becomes either overly-competitive or overly-lonely racing. Combined with the obligatory downgrading that goes along with multiplayer (no boost is offered when you crash; blur effects and other graphical niceties are sacrificed) and you might end up trying to convince friends that it's more fun to take turns playing the game, or to just watch you play instead since it's your game and not theirs.

Steady Beat - Arguably this is as exciting as trucks get, Transformers notwithstanding.

Excite Truck is destined to be largely overlooked this season in favor of big-name titles such as Twilight Princess and Red Steel, especially since the arcadey multiplayer fix is already supplied by the much better-hyped Wii Sports free of charge. It's not an essential part of the Wii lineup, but it works well both as a showcase title built completely around the Wii controllers and as a game that better than most sums up Nintendo's gameplay-over-graphics strategy (it looks shamefully bad compared to PS3's Ridge Racer 7 yet it's roughly four times more fun to play). And as a crowdpleaser for arcade fans who appreciate a cheesy game now and then, and for those bearded individuals alienated by Wii's effeminate design and focus on getting Mom to play video games, it delivers. Excite Truck is Nintendo's flagship title for kiosks in gaming shops and larger outlets; in all likelyhood Dad will see a person play it in the store for two minutes, decide it will make him "the hero" at Christmas if he includes it in the Wii he paid $500 for on eBay, and it will end up under the trees of thousands of children who never asked for it. And that's okay. It's okay.

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