Watch this Game: Excitebots

Today's game is Excitebots: Trick Racing. It launches on April 20 and is developed by Monster Games and published by Nintendo. The game is a successor to the Wii launch title Excite Truck, and the comparisons are obvious. The game appears to use the same engine as Excite Truck and plays in the same way, but with some very obvious differences. First off, you control a animal-themes robot instead of a truck. There are a number of robots available in the game, such as a frog, a bat, and a ladybug, and each one has it's own properties and play-style. The Turtle bot is very slow but really strong, while the bat is very light and has the ability to drift farther after a jump. The game still contains the same terrain deformation feature from Excite Truck (for those who haven't played Excite Truck, it allowed players to run over boxes that would raise or shrink hills and change the dynamics of each race), along with the star mechanic (the game encourages you to collect stars by performing tricks or placing well in a race, with the winner being the player who collects the most stars). However, the game now has "powerups" that enact a mini-game such as knocking over bowling pins or throwing a pie in a clowns face (they get really crazy, think WarioWare meets mario kart). Also in the game are vertical and horizonal bars that players can grab onto and spin around to gain a speed boost, as well as powerups that cause your character to loose their wheels and begin running, gaining speed and the ability ot slam other players out of the way.
Whew, let's take a second to let all that sink in. In one word, this game looks goofy. But based on the videos and impressions I've read so far, it's currently at the top of my list of Wii games to get this year. The game sits on a very strong base (Excite Truck was a great game that I recommend to anyone who hasn't tried it), and the min-games look to make a frantic racer much more so, and as long as it is able to stay interesting after a few hours I'm sure it will be a blast. Plus, 6-player online has been confirmed, and I can imagine the multiplayer in this game will be entertaining to say the least. Even if the style of this game doesn't sing to you, at least give it a try if you see it on demo. It ought to be a blast.

Excitebots is developed by Monster Games, who's website can be found at:
http://www.mgiracing.com/

On a separate note, Excitebots is very significant in that it was announced fewer than a month ago. This is hopefully a sign of things to come, as up until now Nintendo has been hanging games in front of our noses for extended periods of time to fill the gaps between releases. Hopefully Nintendo has a few more big guns up their sleeves (pikmin 3 please), ready for release during the slower months of the year.