The Nintendo Wii had much promise for me when it was announced and I bought mine on day 1 with several games but over a long period of time the only game that I liked was Excitetruck and it kept me entertained for a very long time. I even preferred it over the similar but prettier looking PS3 title Motorstorm which I found to be much less fun and in the end that is why we play games. It took a couple of years but we finally have a semi-sequel to Excitetruck and while it no longer is 4x4 Off-Road Vehicles, this new game is excellent.

In Excitebots you race all over the world from Canada (Woo Hoo) to Egypt, Mexico, Scotland (Woo Hoo), and many other places so you are not just racing in a single jungle or desert setting but ice, desert, scrub brush, prairie, highlands, forest, and more. With a ton of bots to play with of all types such as Frogs, Grasshoppers, Bats, Rhino Beetles and many more to buy from the in-game store by spending stars you earn in the game those who want a game of collections and un-lockable items won’t be disappointed.

If you played Excitetruck you know what to expect from the basic gameplay of the game. Simple and easy to pick up controls with the Wiimote on its side or in the Nintendo Wii Racing Wheel, using straight forward motion controls and button presses for braking, acceleration, controls and stunts.

Like Excitetruck, Excitebots has terrain deformation by hitting key triggers which raise and lower the landscape very quickly. This allows for some nice bonuses to the game when you send vehicles flying from the sudden movement but also allows you to hit high points on the race track and take off and perform some high flying stunts, which are very important to making the best score possible.

The waggle motion controls are used much more this time around and while they do add much to the game I have to say my old arms got tired after a couple of hours of thrusting the Wiimote out or rotating it around fast to throw my Bot far when it was connected to one of the racing launch platforms in the game. These are vertical and horizontal bars where your Bot automatically grows or extends this large hook on an arm device and you have to launch yourself at the right time or build up some serious speed for the best results possible.

Other controls include waggling the Wiimote back and forth so your Bot can run, gliding mode with diving and climbing required to collect items and stunts where you use a combination of turbo mode and waggles to gain some serious star points which are what you need to win. First place is nice but if you do not have the stars you can still loose and that is very important to learn, especially in Poker mode.

As you race across the many maps you will see glowing objects to run over. These are triggers and trigger everything from the raising and lowering of the land, giving you weapons, and even throwing up a soccer-net or some bowling pins for you to smash into for some extra points. Its random, quick events like these which keep the games fast pace fun and addictive.
The different modes in the game include the standard Excite Racing mode, Multiplayer mode (Yay a Wii game with Multiplayer) and Poker mode. Poker mode is extremely difficult but fun because you must make real Poker hands while racing and trying to run over the card you need. Simple pairs work, but you need high scoring hands like straights or flushes to make the high points to win the laps and believe me Poker in Vegas would be easier than Excitebots Poker.

Multiplayer is interesting and fun but I am going to complain about the need to use friend codes. This is one system that severely needs a massive overhaul on the Nintendo Wii and as we tested it here, between Jay and me, it took around 5 minutes to finally get playing. Not a long time but when you are used to Xbox Live it is 4.9 minutes too long. The other small issue I have with multiplayer is before you can play multiplayer you need to unlock it by finishing a series of races. It does not take long, perhaps 15 minutes for average players, but it makes no sense to do this.

Multiplayer is not all bad though, in fact it is almost entirely good. The races, the fun and everything are right there and not once did we experience slow down. Hopefully we will see more fun multiplayer games in the future on the Wii and hopefully we can steer away from needing to switch friend codes with every game.

Graphically the game is a good looking game and while it’s not the best looking Nintendo Wii game we have seen, the frames-per-second never drop down, the color palette is amazingly rich and bright, fast action with deformable terrain and plenty of action happening on the screen. It is simply a great looking game in every way.

One thing that the game does so well graphically and is something I have to mention here is the pure sense of speed you feel as you are racing and hitting those jumps, turbo jumps and more. The game is fast, your Bot is travelling fast and you know you are going fast. It is a total blast.

Audio wise the game does a great job with just the right mix of sound effects and music and never tries to overshadow the game. Not once in the dozen or so hours did the audio become too much or overpowering on my senses which is a good thing.

For a single player and multiplayer title this is by far one of the best value Wii games in a very long time. It builds upon the strengths of the Wii, using them to their full potential and takes the premise from its Excitetruck game and throws us for a robotic racing loop. A game which could only be done on the Wii and don’t you forget it.

If you are a fan of Excitetruck for the Nintendo Wii then this is a no brainer must buy for you and if you are unfamiliar with the Excite series, this is simply the best off road arcade action racing game out there, including those on the other two consoles. If you own a Wii, then you should own this.