t’s not enough that Excite Truck uses the Wii’s motion-sensing controller. Instead of just utilizing it, it takes it and catapults it off of cliffs for monster air, sends it hurtling through valleys at insane speeds, and makes the console scream at the top of its lungs. Luckily, we’re along for the ride.

Developer Monster Games makes sure every moment has you at the edge of your seat. One second you’ll be twisting your controller to drift around corners at blazing speed, and the next you’ll hit a power-up that sends you flying into the air. Although it doesn’t invent anything revolutionary for the arcade racing genre, this game is fun simply because it attains maximum thrills even in the mundane straight-aways. It’s like the legendary Viv Savage said in Spinal Tap, “Have a good time all the time.” Excite Truck achieves this with good track design and a tremendous sense of speed.

As undeniably fun as this game is, its downfall is its lack of depth. You can burn through the initial difficulty setting in the career mode in a couple hours. The Challenge mode isn’t as fun as the main races, and the tracks’ thrills don’t really get progressively cooler as the game goes on. Multiplayer is regrettably not as exhilarating as the single-player, partly because the use of splitscreen cuts down on the important sense of speed.

Anyone getting a Wii should definitely play this game; just don’t expect the thrills to last very long.