So here I am at my first review - one that's been a long time coming, to be sure. What game have I chosen to bestow this honor upon? Why, Excite Truck, of course! Those who know anything about my love for this game will tell you my devotion is nothing short of obsessive. So for those of you waiting with baited breath for a verdict, I'll just tell you now that it's gonna be pretty good.
But you don't read reviews just for the final score, right? (Hint: if you do, you're part of the problem). No, I'm here today to tell you exactly why Excite Truck is so damn awesome, and also to viciously insult you for not buying it earlier (thus ensuring the impossibility of a sequel, DAMN YOU BASTARDS!) The core of Excite Truck's, ahem, excitingness, lies in it's ridiculous speed, over-the-top airtime, and spot-on controls. If none of those things sound exciting to you, then you probably won't like the game and can stop reading now. However, seeing as it's physically impossible not to like any of those things, let's move on.
If you ignore the IGN watermark, then everything in this picture is awesome.Let me get this out of the way first: Excite Truck is ugly, loud, and completely devoid of any redeeming multiplayer. It is in fact one of the barest racers ever made, and would be an embarrassment to the Wii if it weren't so unbelievably awesome.
But it is.
The trick lies in the fun of the game. The fun. Why is it so hard for some people to realize that fun is all that matters in a game? I couldn't give two shits about the graphics if it's an enjoyable experience. Sure, bad graphics can sometimes get in the way of having fun, but that is simply not the case here. When you're blazing down the trail at eye-popping speeds, you simply don't care that the tree you just narrowly avoided has an embarrassingly low number of polygons. Likewise, the music (if it can be called music) somehow seems to fit with the mood of the game. Listening to it on it's own, it sounds as if they hired a deranged hobo to destroy a guitar (and then recorded the results); however, when you're hundreds of feet in the air doing a 180 flip and completely giving gravity the finger, it doesn't matter at all. Also, the game allows you to upload your music via SD cards, so if it really bothers you that much, there's always another option.
All of this "it's bad but it's good" may sound ridiculous, but when you actually play the game you'll understand what I mean. Excite Truck will steal your attention and won't return it until you've completed every last cup. It doesn't need multiplayer, because the single player is so damn fun. A buddy and I spent about 6 consecutive hours one night taking turns to get every last trophy in the game (trophies in Excite Truck are about the most useless things in the world, by the way, but they gave us an excuse to keep playing).
Another major reason Excite Truck is so awesome? You don't have to finish first. The game uses a system of stars to determine what rank you receive at the end of each race; stars are awarded through doing just about anything. Drifting, crashing, throwing other cars, getting air, narrowly avoiding trees, smashing opponents, going through rings, jump-boosting multiple times in a row - all of these give you stars, and as you progress through the cups you'll need every last one of them to snag the coveted "S" ranking (how that's better than "A", I'll never know).
And while finishing at the top of the pile also gives you stars, it can be detrimental to your final tally to try and speed to the front. Shaving seconds off your time means sacrificing valuable air, and can often prevent you from getting good "tree-runs" (one of the most bountiful sources of stars). This system adds a layer of strategy that would have been absent from a normal, "1st = win" racer.
Super tree runs kick serious ass.Something important has to be said here: normal controls would not work at all for Excite Truck. On top of the speed, on top of the air, and on top of the fundamentally slippery feel, having to steer with the Wii remote is the like the perfect cherry to a perfect ice cream sunday. It's not supposed to feel precise, you great blubbering idiots, you're steering a monster truck for God's sake! Monster trucks don't come equipped with space-age steering nanobots that perfectly adjust the turning ratio, they go all over the place! By implementing such a sensitive control scheme, Excite Truck ensures that you'll always be on your toes while simultaneously injecting a feel of realism not seen outside of arcades.
That's not to say it's a bad or hard way to steer; after a few practice rounds it becomes as second nature. It's just the fools who say "I want thumbstick steering wah wah wah" that really piss me off. That would be like controlling Mario with a flightstick; it'd make absolutely no fucking sense at all.
There are a staggeringly low number of modes to choose from in this game; you've got Excite mode (single player), which upon completion will unlock Super Excite mode (slightly harder single player), which upon completion will unlock Mirror (still single player and basically just Super Excite with inverted courses). The multiplayer mode is pathetic and probably should have been left out altogether - you can only race 1 on 1 with no computer players at all. That's it. No more. Then to top it all off there's challenge mode, the only real source of variety that'll either have you navigating through gates (think slalom), jumping through rings, or smashing opponents in an arena setting.
The single player modes are by far the best and are so awesome that they make up for the shittyness of all the rest. Really. I've had Excite Truck for many months, and I still play single player at least twice a week. I can't help it. I'm addicted.
Why yes, that is a tornado in the backround.If you haven't yet been convinced of Excite Truck's greatness, then I'm afraid you have no soul. I freely admit that it really doesn't look that good. I am also aware that it sounds like complete shit. Both of these are valid complaints, and both of them are true.
However, neither of them matter when you actually play the game. It's a blast. Steering with the remote feels incredibly good, and adds to the overall craziness of the game. Now there's something Excite Truck has in spades: craziness. Pure insanity. It can often feel like some sort of bizarre, out-of-body experience playing this game late at night. You start to wonder, "now how come no one's done this before?". Arcade racers have long been known for their sacrifice of realistic physics in favor of a faster feel, but none of them have even come close to this combination of speed and airtime. It's just crazy.
So please: give this game a chance. Don't be fooled by the ridiculous boxart or mediocre reviews; Excite Truck is the real deal. A proper sequel would absolutely kick the shit out of every other game ever, so help make it happen by going out and buying a copy.
FINAL SCORE: A
