Nintendo Wii - Excite Truck
The past weekend a friend of mine came home from Pennsylvania and he brought his Wii with him. I love video games, but have always felt the XBOX was the best system out there. Nintendo has gone in a different direction with the Wii, in that the graphics are not as good as XBOX and PS3, but their games are interactive and they appeal to a much larger audience that includes women. I have never seen any of my female friends so interested in playing a video game in my life. We played some tennis, boxing, bowling, Wario Ware: Smooth Moves, and Excite Truck and we all had a great time.
Excite Truck is a great arcade style racing game! If you’re looking for the Grand Turismo or Fortza Motorsport or even Need for Speed type racing game you won’t find that here. It is much less about the handling of the car and more about simply beating your opponent to the finish line any way you can.
Holding the Wii’s unique stick type controller parallel to the ground with your hands out in front of you, you steer the vehicle by “turning” the controller left or right like you would a steering wheel. The only button pressing is when you want to give your truck a boost. Like its predecessor, Excite Bike, if anyone remembers that game, you can fly farther by raising the nose of the truck. To do this with the Wii you would twist the controller back towards yourself.
Different trucks have different capabilities. Some are faster, some have more handling and some can jump higher and longer. When I was playing I selected the dune buggy while my friend took the rugged pickup with lots of power. He took off right from the start, but lumbered over the jumps. I hit the jumps, twisted the controller back to get as much air as possible, and flew right by him. In the end I had just enough of a lead that he couldn’t catch me and won the race.
It’s a lot of fun, there are a ton of options to choose from, and the Wii’s unique user interface sure makes gamming interesting for everyone.
Excite Truck is one of my favorite games for the Wii. I had Excited bike (still do) and remember being able to build my own tracks, I would have loved to have been able to do that with Excite Truck. My wife loves this as much as she does Wii bowling.
Cool review. I still haven’t bought a second game for the Wii. I really would like to play a game before I buy it. Also I’m trying to find games that are easy for a 3 and 4 yr old to play. Would you recommend this for really young children?
I’m not entirely sure what a 3 and 4 yr old are capable of, but there really isn’t any button pushing so as long as they can turn left and right they might have some fun with this.
hehe…thanks.
I can tell you my 4 yr old can par every hole on wii sports. She is also getting pretty good at baseball now. They really can’t do anything that requires fine motor skills. Sound like this might be a winner.
Thanks!
Ya i love game consoles too, but to be honest, my female friends never interested in video consoles.
But some of them was interested in Worms Armageddon 2d game. Its a cool game
My wife liked Worms when it first came out too. It’s an entertaining game.
The only problem with Excite Truck (my fav) is the side-split for two-player. It should have been a top/bottom split screen.
Did you know Excite Truck 2 is in the works with wi-fi multi-player?
I had no idea. I don’t have a Wii myself, just played a friends. Like Andy said though since the women have fun with this it is a good excuse for me to go get one….if it’s ever in stock.
Eric…
thanks thats a great post maybe a little confused but i think it´s ok to start with it…
Any new game that pays homage to a classic NES game gets my stamp of approval!