We had an opportunity to play what appeared to be a relatively incomplete version of the game, the truck and course was predetermined and you're thrown straight into the race. The first thing we had to do was become accustomed to the controls, you'll need to press the '2' button to accelerate and moving your Wii mote controls whether the truck moves left or right. When you fly over a jump you can tilt the controller to determine whether your wheels land upright or not. You can also execute nitro, which felt insanely fast. There are obstacles littered throughout the tracks as well and if you hit them then you'll need to press the A button rapidly to recover your truck.
Screens don't do the games justice.
Although we got to play for only a few minutes Excite Truck was extremely promising. The game ran at a very consistent frame rate and there were no glimpses of slowdown. The environment is entirely interactive as well. For example, you can pick up a power up which gives your truck temporary strength so you can then bash through a barrage of trees. Graphically the game looked very impressive even though there wasn't much happening on screen at once.
Excite Truck will also support custom soundtracks, which means you can play music through your SD card in game. Excite Truck is one of the only titles we know of that supports this feature, in Burnout Revenge there was nothing better than listening to your own tunes whilst you're going fast, so we imagine the same would be true of Excite Truck. Speaking of going fast, if you get half decent at the game then you'll be going extremely fast, if you use the boost too excessively you can blow your engine but if you're smart about your racing then you can basically use the turbo for the entire race.
Crazy!
In terms of multiplayer, the game supports two player split screen. It is disappointing that the game doesn't jump online or utilize the online capabilities of the Wii, but being an early title it's likely Nintendo weren't able to take advantage of the Wii's online capabilities fully before the game's release.
Overall Excite Truck left us feeling pretty positive about the Wii overall. The game is easy to control and becomes extremely fast very quickly. Excite Truck may not have all that much depth, but it's a fun game and we'd take fun games over in-depth but boring game play any day.
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