Anyone else pick this one up? I started a new thread because the old Wii threads have so much baggage. I got the game, and I find the controls difficult. The game is really FAST and it's hard for my brain and hands to keep up. Any tips?

The graphics are awesome. I bought it because it's multiplayer and I used to really love Excite Bike for the NES (when I was a kid).

Is the multiplayer online?


I saw a preview for it on TV, and it looked REALLY AWESOME. Especially the way the terrain could morph.

The terrain morphing thing caught me off guard. One of the levels has an exploding volcano that looks really cool.

I don't think the mp is online. The only reason I say that is because everyone says there is no online mp yet. But I could be wrong, I didn't play it too long. I actually can't find any wiimotes for sale anywhere around here so I can't even play the mp yet

I really need a wii.

I hope to pick one up like on thursday, or friday.

I played it the other day on my friend's Wii. The controls are a little weird at first, but if you're really smooth on your movements, and don't crank the controller one way or another, it's pretty easy. Also, it really helps to control your truck in the air, like floating it when you need more air (tipping the controller back) etc... And be sure to get perfect landings by controlling the truck in the air so it lands flat. I found that if you kind of slam the truck down when you land you're able to get more perfect landings, which will give you a boost.

Well I played it some more and got A ratings all the first (bronze) tracks. I'm getting more used to it. Verdict still out on whether this is a superior method of input. I'm not convinced yet.

I think it's the next best thing to a wheel. I played the game on the demo machine at ebgames. Once the guys there showed me how to hold the controller it was awesome. Lots of people twist their controller like that when playing racing games anyway (You know you do!)

This is definitely superior to an identical game using an analog stick for steering.

I dont even know anyone with a Wii. Stinkin poor college kid friends of mine.

I've been playing more of this game lately, and I really like it. I'm still not convinced that the controls beat the analog stick from a precision control point of view, but I think it makes it simpler overall. The game is fast and the graphics rock.

Played it today, there was a computer science pizza party and they had a Wii hooked up to a projector (note: if you have a Wii, buy a projector, it's awesome).

I only played excite truck once, but yeah, I found it very hard to control. I kept turning and over-compensating when I'd try to correct.

That part gets much easier with practice.

No. There are none online yet. First one will be Pokemon for Wii.

Yeah, I figured it was just a matter of getting comfortable with the sensitivity.

I don't mean to hijack, but I have a random question...is 480p the maximum resolution the Wii can put out? I mean I understand not supporting 1080p like the PS3 or whatever, but 720p would be awfully nice.

Also, this thread reminds me of Big Red Racing.

I'm not sure, I don't have an hdtv, just a regular one. I've heard something like that, though.

480p is maximum for Wii. I have to agree with Emon here, 1080i and 1080p is fine and dandy for the 360 and PS3, but it would have been nice if Wii went up to 720p.

I'll still get one though.

Brian, is the sensitivity of the wiimote adequately customizable for ExciteTruck?

The 360 and PS3 are also both orders of magnitude more powerful hardware wise. I play the 360 at 1280*1024. Screw HDTV, my 23 inch LCD does better.

Well, I haven't messed with it at all. Really, once I got used to it, the controls are really great. It actually feels easy on the "Excite" difficulty level now. Only the first dozen or so races are hard. Once you follow through all the tutorials and race a bunch of times, it gets a lot easier, and a lot more fun. My step-daughter is 13 and she's getting As and Bs (and sometimes Ss which are better than As) on all the races. It takes her a few tries but she is doing fine.

The nice thing about being limited to 480p, I realized today, is if you want to run it with a projector you don't need an expensive high res one.

You don't need an expensive high res projector for other consoles either, really.

I also find it slightly humorous that consoles are just now getting HD, whereas PC gamers have been enjoying HD for the past decade.

That's true, but if I have a HD console I'm going to want to take advantage of it.

I honestly don't know what any of this 1080i and 480p stuff is. I had never even heard these phrases until this latest console generation. What's so important about them?

Different TV resolutions.

i = interlaced. That is, each time the screen is redrawn only every other line is filled in.
p = progressive. That is, each time the screen is redrawn it fills in each line on the screen.

In North America our TVs run at 60 Hz. Interlaced displays have an effective framerate of 30 frames per second, but it 'looks' like 60 frames per second because half of the screen is updated twice as often. New TVs actually include some fairly complex filters in order to eliminate interlacing artifacts, since very few of them are actually capable of drawing interlaced images.

480i = 720 * 480 interlaced.
480p = 720 * 480 progressive.
720p = 1280 * 720 progressive.
1080i = 1920 * 1080 interlaced.
1080p = 1920 * 1080 progressive.

And what about standard definition TVs? And how do the above numbers relate to "HDTV" or "EDTV" ?

Standard definition is 480i. EDTV is 480p.

HDTV is 720p or above, with 1080p being considered "true HD".

Also, it has been said, though I can't tell you from my own experience, that 1080i looks much better downsampled to 720p than at 1080i.

Damn, that's all confusing. I can't wait for the HD laser TVs to come out next year. They're supposed to rock.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/03/business/03hdtv.html?ex=1301716800&en=00dcf2d34532e989&ei=5089&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss

The whole 1080i vs 720p thing is all dependent on the size of the display and other factors.

The type of content being viewed, too. Interlaced content looks awful when there's a lot of motion involved, but it's a hell of a lot sharper when you're dealing with still images.

I argue that progressive scan is universally better for games.

Virtually every flat-screen I've seen looks awful when displaying dark scenes. I see a bunch of artifacts that look like what you get when you compress JPGs too much. It's really annoying.

We bought our Panasonic a year and a half ago, and the picture quality looks very good. There are none of those black splotches that you're talking about, Brian. The Wii games look ok, but the Xbox 360 games look pretty sweet.

That isn't because of the screen, it's because DVDs suck.

DVD uses a YUV/YCbCr vector colorspace that roughly maps to 12-bit RGB. The colorspace is weighted toward brighter intensities, so you get more shades of bright colors and fewer shades of dark ones. Flat panel TVs suck at displaying true black - LCDs because they have a backlight that's always on, and plasmas because it takes a preposterous amount of power - so you notice the artifacts. CRT TVs suffer from the same problem, it's just that CRTs have a better contrast ratio so it's harder to see. It looks like a bad JPEG artifact because that's exactly what it is.

This problem doesn't exist for anything except DVD.

You'll notice that you get the exact same artifacts on a computer monitor.

We've been watching things with lots of motion at 480i for decades without complaining, and suddenly it 'look horrible'? At least our consoles actually do 480i now. They used to fake it. It was just 320*240, and they sent the same frame twice.

I don't watch DVDs on my computer monitor. I always see the artifacts in stores on their displays, which is why I always hate them. If it's a DVD-only thing, it's still odd, because then that means dvds look better on old tvs than new ones, that's whack.

Once again, it's because CRTs have a much better contrast ratio than LCD and plasma. If you turn the brightness up and the contrast down on an ancient CRT television you'll see the exact same artifacts. It looks like blocks of a murky brown that suddenly fall off into black - because a dark, murky brown is the second-darkest color that can appear on a DVD. On a CRT that dark, murky brown "looks" a lot closer to black because the contrast (the difference between pure black and pure white) is much, much better. On an LCD it looks like a bright splotch because black is really, really bright.

Sorry if I'm reiterating myself.

DVDs were designed for standard-definition CRT televisions. They don't handle widescreen very well and most transfers are still quite poorly done, with various sharpen filters that look fine on an ancient TV but pretty much ruin the movie when you're watching it on anything made this decade. It's one of the reasons the big electronics companies are pushing so hard for HD-DVD and Blu-ray: DVD isn't doing the job, so they want to get a next-generation content platform out there that will make people say "WHOA!" instead of "...ehh, what is this murky garbage?"

Your complaint about flat panel contrast ratios, though, is why I'm interested in SED displays. You get the benefits of a fixed pixel flat-panel display crossed with the color reproduction and contrast ratio of a CRT. It's gonna be beautiful.

I just bought this game today. It's the best game ever*. Oh my god is it fun.


*Not really, but it's really damn fun. Worth the money.