stealth toilet
Moderator
Alright, I finally had my first "Wii" experience yesterday at Ebgames. Unfortunatly the game I played was obviously not a system seller (at least I hope it's not) so my judgement on the Wii itself will wait for some time still. However, Excite Truck itself was a very poor game in my opinion, and not just because of a total lack of polish or design, but even at the fundamental level it felt wrong.
I guess first off I should say that the Wii-mote was much shorter and fatter than I expected, and of course, too small for me. The d-pad, while still better than the GC controller's, was still too small, and my thumb fumbled around with it a bit. This is more or less immaterial for Excite Truck, because the d-pad is not used (kind of), but it could be problematic in future games.
Either way, the mechanism that Excite Truck relies on (that is the tilting one) was either a gross oversight or far too abstract for my brain to comprehend. At first it was easily the most unintuitive control scheme I have ever played. I would either over or under turn every single time. I got a little bit better at this as time went on, but it still never felt right. It was hard enough trying to figure out where exactly my hand positions were "level" and doubly so when my vehicle was swerving all over the road. I spent a good twenty minutes with the game, and while it wasn't exactly in ideal conditions, the gameplay itself (the innovation thereof) seemed to be rushed, untested, and very unfun. I never really did get the hang of it, nor was there much motivation to try to get the hang of it.
It also didn't help that my friend and I couldn't race against any cpu opponents (perhaps we missed the option?) and that the draw distance was ridiculously short. The backgrounds were bland and static, and the courses themselves wholly uninteresting. So in short, they dropped the ball in the graphis and gameplay department, which is very dissapointing from a "next-gen" game.
They should really have Wii-sports playable at EB instead. I'm still looking forward to taking that badboy for a spin.
I guess first off I should say that the Wii-mote was much shorter and fatter than I expected, and of course, too small for me. The d-pad, while still better than the GC controller's, was still too small, and my thumb fumbled around with it a bit. This is more or less immaterial for Excite Truck, because the d-pad is not used (kind of), but it could be problematic in future games.
Either way, the mechanism that Excite Truck relies on (that is the tilting one) was either a gross oversight or far too abstract for my brain to comprehend. At first it was easily the most unintuitive control scheme I have ever played. I would either over or under turn every single time. I got a little bit better at this as time went on, but it still never felt right. It was hard enough trying to figure out where exactly my hand positions were "level" and doubly so when my vehicle was swerving all over the road. I spent a good twenty minutes with the game, and while it wasn't exactly in ideal conditions, the gameplay itself (the innovation thereof) seemed to be rushed, untested, and very unfun. I never really did get the hang of it, nor was there much motivation to try to get the hang of it.
It also didn't help that my friend and I couldn't race against any cpu opponents (perhaps we missed the option?) and that the draw distance was ridiculously short. The backgrounds were bland and static, and the courses themselves wholly uninteresting. So in short, they dropped the ball in the graphis and gameplay department, which is very dissapointing from a "next-gen" game.
They should really have Wii-sports playable at EB instead. I'm still looking forward to taking that badboy for a spin.
