The Colby Echo

Issue date: 3/9/07 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Even if you were one of the lucky few able to snag a Nintendo Wii since the system's launch in November, odds are you still haven't played Excite Truck. Amidst all the hoopla surrounding games like The Legend of Zelda and Wii Sports, this humble little racing game was forgotten. And Judging by its list of features, it would seem that the fact that Excite Truck has gone unnoticed is perfectly understandable. No, Excite Truck does not have good graphics. It has horrible graphics. We all know that the Wii isn't the most powerful hardware on the scene right now, but Excite Truck looks worse than most Xbox 1 games. No, Excite Truck does not have good music. The soundtrack is bafflingly bad, sounding like every "Monsters of Heavy Metal" compilation combined into one single never-ending, ear-bleeding experience of aural torture. To top it all off, the game only has three modes: Excite Race, Versus and Challenge. Versus supplies obligatory multiplayer functionality, but it only allows for two people to go one-on-one, without any computer trucks to liven up the lonely terrain.

But Excite Truck isn't bad, it just fails to meet certain standards. As games become multi-million dollar hype machine-driven entertainment experiences, people have come to expect more than just fun: they want endless functionality they'll never use, they want super-sleek presentation, bonus material and supplemental goodies. When you're paying $50+ for a game, that's not so much to ask, to be fair. Nevertheless, Excite Truck is the exact opposite of this breed of games: it's a no frills package that tries to deliver nothing else but simple, arcade game play and succeeds gloriously in that.

If you've ever played Wave Race or any of the Burnout or Rush games, you'll have an idea of what Excite Truck is like. Essentially, you're racing other huge trucks through outdoor terrain, everything taking place with no regard for the laws of physics. Excite Truck slaps the idea of gravity in the face, allowing trucks to soar and spin in mid-air for tens of seconds at a time. You hold the Wii Remote sideways (like a NES controller), and tilt it from side to side to steer whatever gasoline-guzzling behemoth of a vehicle you've chosen. Sometimes the controls are a little too sensitive: if you tilt the Wii Remote too far to the left or right, the game picks and chooses when to register the movement. Minor annoyances aside, the controls work well, and make racing immersing and fun. Like the great arcade games of old, Excite Truck is all about getting into "the zone": when the controls aren't finicky anymore, when you're racking bonuses on top of bonuses and chaining one absurdly huge jump into another, high scores being broken, excitement experienced total. The game's simplistic demeanor belies game play with considerable depth and longevity.

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