Good for the price.
My decision to by this game was based entirely off the back of the box. I didn't even know this game existed, I just saw it in a shop and thought it looked pretty cool, and £20 seemed like a good deal considering most Wii games go for around £40.
At first I was a little dissapointed because the game seemed really slow and the controls were twitchy. After about 20 minutes though I was able to get used to the controls and even though they aren't as smooth as other Wii racers like Excite Truck or GT Pro Series, the controls definately do the job.
The slow speed of the game was due to the Engine Class I was using. There is only one class available at the start of the game, meaning that for a little while, you'll be participating in some pretty boring races.
To unlock different Engine Classes, as well as new courses you will need to play the Challenge Mode. This is built up of 3 different Championships, the first being Bronze. Once you play through the Bronze Championship, you will unlock the Silver Championship and then playing through this unlocks the Gold.
Other modes include Single Race and Time Trial. In Single race you can go up against the computer controlled trucks or against a 2nd player.
In Time Trial you can pick any of the unlocked courses and try to beat their best times.
There are a couple of items you can pick up during the races. All are pretty much vital to your success, especially in the Challenge modes.
First off there is Nitro, which will give you a big speed boost and comes in handy if you are trailing behind or going over a ramp.
Another object is the Spanner which when picked up will fix some of the damage on your truck. This is probably the most important item as your truck will explode if it takes massive damage. You will respawn but you will fall back quite a bit.
The final item is the Dollar sign. Picking this up will give you money to unlock new trucks. These are only available on the Single Race and Challenge modes.
Each race is made up of 3 laps and you try to make it to 1st place against 7 other trucks. The races can be quite frustrating at times when you play on a higher difficulty or with a faster engine class. The early races can be quite boring though due to the slower trucks and generally dumb AI. On the hardest difficulty they will try their best to knock you out of the way or send you spinning off the track completely, but on easy they can overtaken around 10-15 seconds in to each race.
A few things are put in place though to help keep the races fun, like ramps and boost pads. The boosts pads are just flat objects on the ground that give you a small boost when you drive over them. This is similar to the Nitro pick ups but with a smaller effect.
The ramps can go either way when they come to helping you. If they are hit just right they will send you flying through the air allowing you to get some money or extra Nitro or just help you finish quicker. It's more likely to hit the ramp wrong either on an angle or catching it too far left or right. Doing this will flip your truck in to the air and you be sent crashing to the ground. Then you'll waste time respawning.
The controls are also hit and miss sometimes. Like I said it took me around 20 minutes to get used to the controls, and even now I still find my self spinning off the track quite a bit or not turning fast enough. This has to do with the controls being quite sensitive in some places and unresponsive in other places. Most of the time they work fine but they can get frustrating when you've done a perfect powerslide and moments later when you try a simple turn, the controls seem to screw up.
The way the controls are set up is like most Wii racers. Hold the Wii remote on it's side, 2 to accelerate, 1 to brake. The A button is for the handbrake and the D-pad is for switching the view. To use your Nitro just thrust the Wii remote forward.
The graphics in this game are quite bland all over. There are a bunch of different effects like explosions, rain, and lighting and a good variety of textures but everything looks very low-res. The crowd especially look terrible as they are just blurry flat images pasted on to the stadiums. You'll see some camera flashes every now and again but the lack of a realistsic looking crowd actually takes away from the races. Apart from that, everything looks decent. The courses are quite detailed as are the Trucks, which all have distinctive styles, especially the WCW Nitro truck, which is a strange sight in a 2007 non licensed racing game, considering WCW went under around 6 years ago. Still it's a good addition if you're a wrestling fan, which I am.
Overall the graphics are quite bad. Most people say that the majority of Wii games look bad, but the games that do look bad technically usually make up for it in having a good style. This, really has neither style or the tech side, but it gets the job done. Just don't look at the crowd and you'll be ok.
The music is pretty average but goes quite well with the game. It's all up beat soft rock type stuff that gets quite repetitve. The sound effects however are a high point of the game. There's not much variety in Engine sounds but they have some power to them. There are other effects for when you slide in the gravel or smash other trucks or land awkwardly on the ground. Overall the effects are great.
All in all, considering the price, this is a decent purchase. It's probably better to get while you are waiting for something else to come out, which is why I got it. The controls glitch occasionally but don't really screw up your chances in a race. The graphics are ok if you keep your expectations low and concentrate on the course and not the crowd. The music is average and the effects are cool. The real downside is the length of the challenge mode. It shouldn't take you more than a couple of hours to complete it. Unlocking all the courses takes a bit longer though and there is muliplayer. If you're still not sure, it's definately worth a rental.