| Rhonin the wizard said: Images and info of ExciteBots: Trick Racing from Nintendo Power here. |
Retyped from that screenshot, with interesting parts bolded.
Bowling pins, field goals, pie-throwing, and robotic bugs – Monster Games lets its checkered freak flag fly with its sequel to Excite Truck, Excitebots: Trick Racings.
Any surprise involving bugs usually isn’t a good one, but Excitebots: Trick Racing – a follow-up to Excite Truck featuring insectlike vehicles – has only just been announced, and it’s nearly out! Yep, April will see the return of Excite Truck’s turbo-jumping, tree running, air-spinning madness, with even more features, cool stunts, and what-were-they-thinking craziness than before. We’ve played the game for several weeks, and we’re pleased to report that, as much as we loved ‘Truck, ‘Bots is set to blow right past it as one of the top arcade-style racers on the Wii.
In the shadow of the overwhelming success of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Wii Sports, Nintendo’s Excite Truck (developed by Monster Games) made its mark on the Wii launch by earning a dedicated and die-hard fan base. If you’re not a fan yourself, you’ve probably met one or come across them on online message boards. Excite Truck isn’t merely a good game; it’s the kind of game that inspires others to sing it’s praises. We spoke with Hiro Yamada, Supervisor at Nintendo, and Richard Carcia, Team Lead and President of Monster Games, who offered a simple explanation: “Fans love the thrill you get from the mind-blowing combination of attempting crazy stunts while racing at lightning speed. It’s an experience that triggers and adrenaline rush that you can’t get from any other game.” Excite Truck crusaders will be glad to know that everything they loved about the game is back in Excitebots (except the trucks, naturally), and has been taken to a new level.
Trick Racing
As the game’s subtitle implies the racing action in Excitebots isn’t just about finishing in first place. Yamada and Garcia explain: “Excite Truck was the product of our desire to create something that was more than your conventional racing game where the objective is to win first place _ something we’d been getting slightly bored of. Of course, the earlier you finish the race, the higher your bonus points will be, so the ideal scenario would still be to finish the race as fast as possible, while at the same time managing to pull off all the stunts. Fast-paced racing combined with the insane stunts is what triggers the rush.” In both Excite Truck and Excitebots, your overall rank for the race is determined not only by your finishing position, but also by the points earned from stunts. So, very much against the grain, these games make it possible to win without coming in first.
Another hallmark of Excite Truck was the ability to morph straightaways into mammoth ramps, a feature that is back and even wilder in Excitebots. A well-timed boost can send you soaring over a large part of the track in a breathtaking jump. You can rack up points with Air Spins while in the clouds or by drifting and smashing into other bots back on the ground. All of the courses are off-road and teeming with multiple paths and shortcuts, so you have a lot of freedom to find your own path around the track.
None of [Excite Trucks's] gameplay elements are impacted by Excitebot’s switch from trucks to robot critters, but we’ve found the change to be a huge improvement nonetheless. The bots add a lot of personality, and their wildly varied designs present a more compelling reason to try out multiple vehicles. With a lineup of insects and animals as diverse as a ladybug, a beetle, a grasshopper, a bat, a frog, a turtle, a mouse, and a mantis, you’ll want to try them all out. Of course, each one drives differently due to their varied weights and performance ratings. And with the right in-race power-up, bots can even transform for a short time and run on two legs!
So, we’re sold on the bots, but why were trucks dumped in the first place? The developers explain: “The original Excite Truck stood out from the crowd because of the unlikeliness of trying crazy tricks with regular trucks that you might see every day. This time, we’re bringing even more insane stunts and tricks. However, when we raced the new tracks with the trucks, we felt that two elements didn’t match up quite as well as we hoped, and we couldn’t get immersed in the game like we wanted to. So, we really wanted to create an offbeat, unconventional design that no one would find anywhere else and would fit with the wacky action. That’s how we came up with these robot critters.”
Taking Control
Of Excite Truck’s many features, best known is its Wii Remote tilt-control steering, which was a revolution when the title launched alongside the Wii. This control method is unchanged in Excitebots: you hold the remote sideways in both hands with the buttons facing up, and you tilt either side up or down (Like a seesaw) to turn left of right. Twisting the Remote towards or away from you lets you angle the bot in midair to land on all four…
And that's where the article seems to end. Seems like they're may be more on the next page. The part where Monster's people are talking about how they tried the new tracks with Trucks and didn't think it was a good fit might be one of the reasons Nintendo doesn't announce titles until they're nearly ready. So the developers can freely change direction without violating previously set expectations. Like what happened with "Banjo-Threeie".
Oh, and dibs on the frog car.
