Officially, this is the worst Wii
game I’ve played.
I know, this is a pretty bold
statement, and I have had my share of stinky games lately. But I have to tell
you, that while racing games aren’t my favorite, I have always dug on monster
truck games. I know, a sad exception to say the least, but hey, there is
something about 8,000-.lbs trucks smashing the snot out of pretty much
anything and burning through gas faster then should be allowed by law. So
since destruction and mayhem are par for the course then I am usually down
with the monster truck. This would be the exception.
When a game like this comes along
and you cannot control the vehicle even after reading the instruction book,
then you know you are in for a long, long evening. I cannot stress enough, how
miserable the controls of this game are. I am not lying when I say that the
Wii-mote has been greatly dumbed down to the point of ineffectiveness for this
game. You can move the vehicle, but since the developers knew they
were porting a clunker of a game, they put invisible barriers up so you can’t
run off the track. Good thing, too – turning a monster truck is no easy task
and if it weren’t for those invisible walls, you would get nowhere.
Check out the rocks, there the only thing worth lookin at.
The game uses the tried-and-true
"power" meter boost system. Only in this title your power meter increases when
you run over things and jump off of ramps. Its kind of a redundant option
since you can’t keep the truck on the road to begin with. Plus it seems to be
a afterthought, even though I realize it isn’t. It just "feels" tacked on.
Now at this point you should
understand that this game is actually a racing game and that smashing up
things is sort of inconsequential. The tracks are amazingly boring and have no
sense of texture, racing in snow is exactly the same as racing on dirt, which
is the same as every other surface. A few obstacles litter the tracks
including some jumps that are supposed to do something for the player, in
reality they don’t. It’s a meandering display of back-and forth driving that
is simply pedestrian in its design.
The same vim and vigor that went
into porting this game over and then applying decent gameplay mechanics
(sarcasm) was apparently used to score this game. Now I like my rock ‘n roll
as much as the next guy, but the crud in this game almost makes me think of
the hair bands I didn’t like in the late 80’s. Sound effects, too, are way
underpowered and have no life in them. C’mon, you ever been to a monster truck
rally? The noise those things put out is deafening. None of that power was
placed into the sound effects or the surround sound.
"I don’t know what’s in the back of my
truck, but it stinks real bad…"
Saying this game is better when
playing with a friend is like saying you like having your feet nailed to the
floor; yeah, you can move around, but not much. And being that it becomes
split screen and the controls are horrible enough as it is, you will probably
stop playing after maybe three minutes. And I am spotting you two minutes just
to set the parameters up.
Look, I don’t know who’s idea it
was to port this over from the PS2 version that came out a while back, but the
developers didn’t even mix things up. The start-up menu looks almost identical
and the truck themselves are just poorly copied pictures. You can’t juice them
up or trick them out, with additional colors or engine size. Nowhere is there
an editor to design your own truck. Sad. You can play the career mode and
actually unlock additional circuits that do nothing to make the game more
entertaining.
|
Gameplay: 1.5
Yes, this is officially the worst playing game I have ever
experienced. The controls are horrible, nothing seems to function as it
should.
Graphics: 1.8
A bad-looking game on the original
PS2, ported over for our entertainment. Everything is very shoddy looking, bad
pictures of the trucks in the menus, no sense of texture when racing on
different surfaces.
Sound: 2.0
Way underpowered and completely
ineffective for a racing game involving monster trucks.
Difficulty: Hard
Because you can’t control the
thing.
Concept: 1.5
Once again, there is nothing new
since it is a port game. The boost idea would be good if there was fun things
to run over or jump.
Multiplayer: 1.1
Yeah, that score should say it
all.
Overall: 1.6
This is my new record for a
low-scoring game.