The follow up to the older Motocross fresstylin' game, Excite Truck brings family fun and great graphics to the Nintendo Wii. Excite Truck is the long-lost brother of the older game Excite Bike, in which you took your Motocross-riding dude off the high jump and landed well for bonus points. While this was fun, Excite Truck has brought much more to the once loved game than expected.
Let's get right into it. You're a guy driving a truck off of super high jumps, to spin and boost your way through the skies and land well for those stars. You can collect 5 stars in total from a specially set tricks list, such as a well done tree run, boosting, spinning, landing on all four tires, and hitting your opponents hard into the unforgiving terrain. These stars all add up in your final score, in which you can get 50 bonus stars for coming in first, to make a total number of stars, which decide on if you pass, and how well you passed. If you have enough stars, you move on.
Although the Wii wasn't expected to be the “ub3r pwn grafix mastur” of this generation, Excite Truck doesn't look bad. It has a nice, pleasing design (Jaggies? Puh-please!), and everything goes together oh so well. Terrain detail has been put into perspective, and has not been left out!
First time play can be a tad frustrating, but with the awesome tutorial mode, you'll be ramping off the big dirt hills in no time at all. Oh, you'll also be launching opponents hundreds of feet into the air, only to watch them crash. Fun. The learning curve is pretty good, and once mastered can be a fun experience.
Now, multiplayer. You can face a multitude of other truckers in the story mode game, and can go head on head with another player with a second Wiimote. Other than that, it's lacking online play, and the two-player, dual Wiimote game can get a little stale without other truckers wanting to smash you up just to take home the glory.
GAMEPLAY
With a fun, easy to grasp style of play, Excite Truck is a solid 9 when it comes to gameplay. Easy to learn, difficult to master.
GRAPHICS
Although it doesn't compare to most Xbox 360 or PS3 games in terms of graphics, it still has a jaggy-less, smooth look to it. All the effects in the game, such as flames and water, are beautifully clear. An 8.
SOUND
At first listen, Monster Truck lacks in the sound track department. Fortunately, you can import mp3 songs with the use of an SD card. The sound effects in the game are crisp, not jumpy, and clear. For the ability to import songs, it gets an 8.
VALUE
Rent it. That's pretty much it. With the lack of online play and a limited selection of trucks, it's simply not worth $50. For that money, sign up for a few months of GameFly. Renting this for a week will be plenty of time to enjoy it, and return it. A 6.
I appreciate you reading my review on Excite Truck.