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Despite the fact that the Wii’s first forays into the Racing genre
have been of a dubious quality, with the Film Licence multi-format
title
Disney/Pixar: Cars perhaps being
 the current best, the
appeal of Driving titles on Nintendo’s new console is obvious.
Without the need for a separate peripheral (although UBi Soft’s
GT Pro Series offers one), Wii can offer an altogether more
realistic interaction for fans of the genre through the utilisation
of the Wii Remote’s much vaunted Motion-Sensoring capabilities.
Simply holding the Wii Remote on its side, with or without UBi
Soft’s bundled attachment, allows a decent emulation of a steering
wheel, albeit not exactly a carbon copy of the standard used today
in most vehicles. As has been the norm for some time now, a new
Nintendo console generally requires a new Nintendo game to show
Third-Party developers exactly how to utilise the features inherent
to the system and although UBi Soft and THQ have at least dabbled in
the Racing genre, the discerning gamers eye has always been on
Nintendo’s foremost First-Party title;
ExciteTruck.
Given the title’s obvious relation to the NES classic ExciteBike,
most gamers are expecting a fast-and-furious Arcade-style Racer and
predictably, that’s exactly what
ExciteTruck is. Keeping-in
with Nintendo’s philosophy of holding players hands, especially as
they could happen to be one of the fabled lapsed gamers,
ExciteTruck first forces players to under-go at least the first
quarter of the Tutorial. This covers the basics of steering, jumps,
Turbo’s and earning Stars, all of which are critical to gameplay.
Once these brief lessons have been completed, it’s on to the two
flavours of the main game; Excite Race and Challenge. The first
follows more-or-less the traditional Arcade Racer formula; complete
tracks, unlock new vehicles and tracks, lather-rinse-repeat, whilst
the latter offers a few specific challenges, such as driving through
gates to increase an ever draining timeout counter. However, despite
its generic first impression, ExciteTruck is somewhat
different to the usual Arcade Racing experience. First-and-foremost,
your finishing position is not as important as the amount of Stars
earned throughout the race, as only collecting an oft-harsh minimum
of Stars in each race allows advancement. Although higher positions
offer a generous boost to your Star total, the majority will be
earned through your driving, similar to the Kudos system featured in
the
Project Gotham Racing series, although this time the
bonus is not for how stylishly you drive, rather how recklessly you
career around the oft-ludicrously dangerous tracks. Near misses with
trees, ramming other competitors, catching big air and drifting are
all rewarded with between one and five Stars, with the maximum added
to a tally that helps to unlock new items. This, together with the
need for the juicy high-position bonuses, helps keep the action in
ExciteTruck frantic, sometimes excessively so, as the
original control method leaves questions as to whether an Analogue
Stick is actually an easier, though not as immersive, way to drive.
As if the manic driving was not enough to blur the senses, the
addition of Power Ups that deform the terrain in real-time present
even more challenges to the player. Most will allow the formation of
jumps, key to gaining Air Stars and speed; as landing your truck on
all four wheels - through tilting the remote and in turn the truck -
gives a decent Turbo Boost. Others will form shallow
 lakes allows
liberal use of another of ExciteTruck’s features, the Turbo,
as although in theory your Turbo allowance is infinite, most trucks
will overheat rapidly and must cooled through jumps and driving in
shallow water.
Although the graphical output of the Wii’s launch titles ranged from
beautiful but slightly dated,
The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight
Princess being a prime example, to the downright dire
Red
Steel, the Wii seems to have gained some footing in
ExciteTruck. Tracks are richly detailed, the
Draw-Distance is generous and the trucks shine brilliantly, all with
no noticeable performance problems even in the midst of the frequent
automobile madness. Water effects are also top-notch and it’s nice
to see the entry of fully three dimensional foliage, despite Wii’s
status as the least powerful console of the new generation.
ExciteTruck sounds pretty good too. The crunches, engine-noise
and effects are all spot-on and the music is upbeat and lively,
exactly fitting-in with the atmosphere of the title. ExciteTruck
is also unique as its allows the use of user-created playlists
through SD FLASH Cards, a feature taken for granted by the
Xbox faithful, but a first for a Nintendo console.
With over fifteen tracks and an oft-punishing difficulty level,
ExciteTruck will keep most players busy for quite some time.
Unfortunately, although initially a great deal of fun,
ExciteTruck suffers from the same issue that marred
Full Auto
and a great deal of other Arcade Racers, a lack of depth. There
is also the unfortunate but obvious lack of online play as well as
limited support for only two players in Split-Screen Multi-Player
games. Nevertheless, the frenzied pace of the game, the novel
innovations, immersive control style and the traditional high level
of Nintendo polish make this an easy title to recommend to fans of
the genre, as well as the majority of Wii owners in light of the
sparse release schedule of these early first months. |
