Excite truck is a fun ride while it lasts, but with no real depth it ultimately becomes a forgettable experience.

User Rating: 6.5 | Excite Truck WII
Excite Truck, as the spiritual successor to Excite Bike is a crazy, over the top thrill ride that is over far too quickly, and with little else to the package.

The game itself is based around trucks racing, (just in case you couldn't guess) with a twist, often its not about where you finish in the race, but how you got the to finish. Tricks and flourishes are the name of the game here, and the game includes a variety of tools to help you do these. You need to do these stunts in order to collect stars, a certain number of these stars is needed to pass each race, and a corresponding rank is given, in the range C, B, A or S.

the core of the game is performing these stunts, which include catching big air off ramps, doing spins whilst in the air, drifting, shunting other cars off the road and speeding through a forest without hitting any trees and more. All these give you the previously mentioned stars, as well as contributing to in-game achievements after races. There are also items on the track that alter the scenery to make it easier to either perform tricks or go faster.

you control the truck by holding the Wii remote horizontally, and tilting to either side with a speed boost available by holding down the d-pad. the control is in a word serviceable, there is no real precision to the driving, and the game doesn't really need it, however there were moments where I wished I had not just smashed into that tree because the game stated i didn't turn the remote "quite" enough.

Excite Truck offers the basics in terms of modes and starts with some tutorial levels, there is the standard race mode, available in 2 difficulties "excite" and "super excite" the latter of which is unlocked after getting S rank in all the previous difficulties races. and challenge, which are some courses with added gates, rings, or trucks to smash which are some variety from the main game, but not quite enough for multiple plays.

Overall, Excite Truck is fun, but has some control frustrations and is lacking in the variety of modes, no online for example, this makes for a short ride, and if found cheaply enough, may be worth taking.