Excite Truck

Excite Truck is the next instalment in Nintendo's Excite series, the successor to Excite Bike 64 and Excite Bike on the NES. Despite racing in trucks, the races are very fast and the trucks can be propelled to great heights which is where you will be spending a lot of time.

The overall aim on the track is not necessarily to win the race, but to achieve a B grade or above which is achieved by gaining a certain amount of stars which varies race to race. Finishing 1st does put you in good stead to achieve this level because 50 stars are awarded for 1st place, 25 for 2nd, 15 for 3rd, 10 for 4th, 5 for 5th and nothing for 6th. It's easy to see what a huge difference this makes when the aim is to achieve say; 100-180 stars.

When racing, you can achieve stars by gaining large heights off the jumps, performing spins in the air, smashing into cars, drifting round corners and using the power-ups. On the harder races, it seems almost mandatory to finish 1st as well as racing in style, but on the initial difficulty, you can often progress by coming 4th or worse but racking up the stars throughout the race.

The game is controlled by holding the remote sideways with 1 and 2 being brake and accelerate respectively. Steering is controlled by tilting the remote left and right and the D-pad controls the turbo boost.

Using the turbo heats up your engine and overheating slows you down temporarily. By gaining airtime, or driving in water, your engine will cool down so its a good idea to keep an eye on the gauge and boost as much as possible, especially when you see upcoming water or are about to hit a ramp.

Whilst in the air, you have a certain degree of control and can tilt your remote forward or back to land earlier/later. Landing perfectly will also give you an additional boost. Holding the 1 button, a direction on the D-pad and rocking the remote will cause your truck to spin in the air, and this motion is quite hard to get used to. A 360 spin achieves 1 star, 720 gains 3 stars and 1080 gets 5 stars.

Around the course are certain icons that often transform the level such as creating a large hill or causing the earth to sink and fill with water which is an extremely cool and impressive feature. Only your truck seems to be able to activate these icons so they are always available to use and give you the chance of obtaining the extra stars.

The frantic nature of the game means you will crash on frequent basis, but you respawn quickly and are thrown straight back into the action.

In addition to the main mode, there's a challenge mode that presents you with a few extra challenges like jumping through rings, driving through gates, and smash challenge.

The visuals in Excite Truck are quite basic but on the plus side, the game runs smoothly. The game is hectic and very fun, although to unlock the next difficulty you need to complete every track with an S award which can be challenging. The cups are bronze, silver, gold and platinum and have 5 tracks each (apart from bronze which has 4) with an additional race on the Super Excite difficulty. Many people's criticism has been with a lack of content which is a fair comment, although achieving those S awards will keep you coming back and increasing the game's length.