By adding clever minigames and fun online play, Excitebots is a charming game that just feels a bit bare-bones on modes.
You play Excitebots: Trick Racing with the Wii Remote horizontally (or with the Wii Wheel). You accelerate using the 2 button, brake with the 1 button, turn by tilting the Wii Remote left or right, activate turbo boosts with the D-Pad (either up or down), and use items and power-ups with the A button. It's simple enough, and it actually does a decent job at making it accessible to play. However, the turning doesn't feel like an improvement from Excite Truck. The sensitivity remains unrefined and it makes turning around those tights corners more hassle than it's worth. You can recover from a crash by shaking the Wii Remote, and some of the different actions (like swinging on bars or turning on rails) use motion controls. While it still has some of the control flaws that the original Excite Truck had, Excitebots remains accessible and easy to play.
Excitebots plays a lot like Excite Truck in that you mostly are racing across extremely steep terrain and taking flight with plenty of Turbo Air Boosts. From that alone, the game's sense of speed and scale is incredible. You'll see a tremendous distance after launching your respective machine into the air. But like Excite Truck, Excitebots doesn't simply rely on getting first place. The goal of a majority of the races is to earn stars, which can be used to buy new robots, trophies, and unlockables outside of races. Stars can be earned by performing stunts, using power-ups successfully, or getting a good placement in races. The unlockables are extremely plentiful, perfect for completionists, but the majority of them are pretty underwhelming, like a trophy or new coloring for your respective Excitebot. Even if the overall reward is a bit low-key, the star system mixes up gameplay in a great way, making the stunts and power-ups more important than in other racing games.
And that's what Excitebots prides itself on: the power-ups. Along with the typical Turbos, the player can also grab assorted power-ups to change the game, either offensively or defensively. Some power-ups are simple like bombs or speed boosts, but others like the chattering teeth (that seek out opponents to slow them down) are surprisingly clever. Other power-ups let you change the terrain itself to set up star-grabbing launches or toss other opponents, very similar to Excite Truck. But Excitebots really gets creative in the power-ups. Frequently when you grab a power-up, a short minigame will appear. These can range from driving into a football for a field goal, pressing A at the right time to fish in a nearby lake, or playing a tambourine to earn stars. These add unique twists to gameplay and are fun and strategic ways to earn stars. Also, items like bars, poles, and ramps appear where the player must move the Wii Remote in a specific way for best result. These appear frequently, but don't get old. The overall implementation of crazy minigames and clever use of the Wii's motion controls makes Excitebots more than a simple, family-friendly racing game. It actually makes for a unique twist on the racing formula, one that any gamer can enjoy.
Excitebots has a pretty decent amount of options. There's the mandatory School Cup to learn the ropes of racing, with the remainder of the standard options being unlocked upon its completion. You get the typical Excite Race, a set of competitions across different world locales. Completing each cup isn't difficult and considering that there are so few cups to be able to play through, the Excite Race isn't the biggest mode. There's also Poker Race, one of the craziest modes ever featured in a racing game. The player drives through a track, collecting giant playing cards to get the best hand. You press the A button to cash your hand in for stars. The one with the most stars at the end of the race wins. Poker Race has a slight emphasis on luck, but it's surprisingly addictive and unique. You also get the ability to play through the minigames seen in races and even take the racing online via Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connection. The online racing is very well-implemented. Jumping into a quick race is easy and even watching races play out adds a degree of scope. Even cooler is that players can bet stars on themselves, adding a sense of incentive and urgency to the overall races. It's a quick, though tricky method to earning stars quickly, but it sets Excitebots out from the typical online racers. Add in all of the crazy uses of the Wii Remote and over-the-top minigames and you get a racing game unlike any other.
Excitebots' sense of speed really is its defining feature in terms of presentation. It matches the breakneck pace of games like Burnout, while also including tremendous, over-the-top launches into the air. Aside from the speed and aerial views, it's disappointing to see so little improvements since Excite Truck (which was a Wii launch title). The robots animate well (a little robotically, but that's appropriate), but it's a shame that the graphics haven't made the leap from a Wii launch title. While the graphics have their charm, the music doesn't. It's really bad. The generic racing tunes make the races feel repetitive. The omission of the ability to play your own music from an SD card is a mystery, leaving players with the boring racing music to contend with. The crash and power-up sounds are okay, albeit simple, but for the most part get the job done. If you can put up with the poor music and lack of serious graphical upgrades, you'll find the presentation in Excitebots to be charming and surprisingly engaging.
Pros
+ Great sense of speed and scope
+ Crazy in-race microgames are a riot to play
+ Tons to unlock
+ Online multiplayer is fun and surprisingly balanced
Cons
- Racing cups are few and brief
- Controls still feel loose
- Bad music
- Unlockables are pretty underwhelming
Excitebots: Trick Racing is a remarkable racing game. Instead of attempting to increase graphics and realism, Excitebots goes the other direction, adding crazy minigames and engaging gameplay. The clever mixes of minigames and racing improve the star system considerably from Excite Truck. However, the unlockables in Excitebots really feel intended towards completionists, and the overall presentation, though charming, isn't a huge leap from Excite Truck. The controls aren't perfect and the single-player racing cups are short and few, but Excitebots has made a very solid successor into the racing game genre. In a world where hyper-realistic controls, damage modeling, and super tuning of cars have taken center stage, Excitebots throws that all out the window, instead using wacky gameplay and over-the-top minigames to keep things fresh. Anyone looking for a fun, original racer that doesn't take itself seriously will love Excitebots: Trick Racing. It's not long or complicated, but it's a Wii racer with enough crazy quirks to check out, and in a market saturated with realism, is a breath of fresh air for a genre that really needed it.