I don’t know about you, but I thought Excite Truck was a hell of a game. Not just as a launch game either. Its terrain deformation, ridiculous stunts, enormous jumps, and speed were good fun. It wasn’t as demanding as its grandpappy Excitebike, but that suited its loose motion controls nicely. It flopped hard though, failing to break into the top selling games the month it came out. In fairness, it deserved to flop. Who puts out a racing game at launch and doesn’t include multiplayer? Appalling. More than that though, there was no aesthetic hook to sell Excite Truck to Nintendo’s audience. Its beefy trucks and muddy trails milieu might have played back in 1987, or even ’97, but those days were long gone for Nintendo by the time the Wii released.
Now, Monster Games is back with Excitebots: Trick Racing. It looks like a lot of fun. Excite Truck but with wacky animal-robot-cars, more stunts, power-ups that involve driving into giant sandwiches, and, most importantly, multiplayer. I’m excited to play it. I’m also mystified by Nintendo’s decision to send this poor game out to pasture, just like Excite Truck. Animal-robots or not, there’s nothing here to grab up the massive Nintendo audience. There’s an easy way to make Excitebots into a multi-million seller instead of a ten-thousand seller. You make it a Smash Bros. game.
