The power item icon can be picked up and automatically slips you into an insanely fast temporary boost mode that makes you damn-near indestructible, and allows you to cut a path of destruction through trees and obstacles that would otherwise cause you to bail and crash. Between all of these components, this is how you'll be looking to hit the allotted star goals for the races.
And that pretty much sums up the gameplay that Excite Truck has to offer. The game has a decent selection of courses and environments to choose from, each one based on a supposed real-life location, like Scotland or Fiji. But really, the tracks could be based anywhere at all, and you'd never really know the difference -- unless you think that Scotland is the only place in the world that might have a castle. Some courses are more fun than others. For example, the snow and ice-based courses are a pain in the arse compared to the lush green and brown courses that sport forest tracks and small bodies of water. There are a number of different routes that can be taken on each locational environment, and for the most part, these locales are recycled from cup to cup.
The overall visual and aural quality of Excite Truck comes in somewhere on the low end of my expectations. Sure, the game runs in widescreen at 480p and has a solid frame rate, but aside from the ok-looking car models, everything about the game is pretty ugly at best. The music is downright atrocious, however, and I could only stomach so many asstastic rock tunes before I lost control and hit the mute button on my amp. It is worth noting that if you own an SD memory card, you can load it up with some of your favorite MP3s and have the game play those in a random order instead -- which proves to be the best option by far.
In terms of the control scheme on offer, I'd have to say that although it takes a little while to get used to the sensitivity of the Wii Remote's steering mechanics, it actually feels good after a while. There are times where you'll crash and lose positions in a race, and there's nothing you can do about it except blame the steering -- it's just a fact of life for Excite Truck. Overall though, Nintendo and Monster Games did a good job of making Excite Truck a novel, if slightly forgettable, racer for the Wii. Like I said at the beginning of the review, I highly doubt Excite Truck will standout in anyone's memory past the end of the year. The lack of decent multiplayer and total lack of online play hurt the longevity, but if you absolutely need a racer to play at launch, you can't really do any better than this one.
