Bus Blogging....

It's been a while since I've blogged on the bus... The continued lost posts and sitting in draft mode has really slowed up my blogging enthusiasm. Missing two buses on the way in this morning though left me will little else to do. The buses were supposed to leave 5 mins apart so if I missed the first (which I saw driving away as I turned the corner) I thought i was fine for the second which then I saw drive up the hill :(

So here we are blogging... First of all some Wii updates... I got Excite Truck on Friday and it has all the hallmarks of having the Burnout level of fun. I've been playing it pretty hard since I got it and there is an impressive level of content. They have stuck to the formula well with the wins leading to more upgrades which then spur you on for more wins. They have an interesting take on car upgrades though with either S Level (the top ranking) wins or number of races unlocking the upgrade for the car. Typically it's 10 races or 3 S level wins giving you the car upgrade.
The sense of speed is great and although there is a lack of the spectacular bullet time crash scenes that make burnout so much fun the huge jumps and air go a long way towards it.
Again just like burnout there is the star rating for the tricks/special moves in the game. Drift, Jumps, Air, Crashes, Tree Runs etc etc. all add up to give you your score at the end and ultimately your ranking.
One aspect that is completely different to any other racing game of this type is the Terrain changing. There are "power ups" littered around the track that allow you to morph the terrain to unlock bigger jumps etc etc. These just enhance the frantic pace of the game with huge mountains rising up in front of you, arguably the best aspect of this is being able to throw your opponents to their doom...
The bottom line is.... It's a fun game... it's never going to be a deep gaming experience but with the Rankings, Trophies and unlockables combined with the fast paced racing results in the "just one more race aspect". The only aspect which is a bit of a let down is the multiplayer. It's only split screen 2 player and there are no computer opponents. Online would have been nice but online wii games are a fair way off yet... maybe it will have to wait for Excite truck 2....