First look at Excitebot Trick Racing vehicles

Your first look at the vehicles of Excitebots: Trick Racing will either be met with excitement or bemusement.

When we brought your attention to the upcoming sequel to the Wii classic Excite Trucks, we had no idea what the "bots" were in reference to. Today Nintendo Power Magazine enlightened us.

The bots refer to the robot critters pictured above. Yes, you'll be racing as a selection of wheeled animals; including a ladybird, a beetle, a grasshopper, a bat, a frog, a turtle, a mouse (I originally read that as moose; I'm now disappointed), and a praying-mantis. If the game doesn't have classic written all over it, it certainly has multi-million selling game plastered on it instead.

Each critter will have its own weight and handling properties, so you'll want to give each of them a try. Especially when their tricks involve getting up on two legs and running to the finish line.

The president of Monster Games, Richard Garcia, explains why the team scrapped the trucks:

"The original Excite Truck stood out from the crowd because of the unlikeliness of trying crazy tricks with regular trucks that you might see every day. This time, we're bringing even more insane stunts and tricks.

"However, when we raced the new tricks with the trucks, we felt that the two elements didn't match up quite as well as we hoped, and we couldn't get immersed in the game like we wanted to.

"So, we really wanted to create an offbeat, unconventional design that no one would find anywhere else and would fit with the wacky action. That's how we came up with these robot critters."

Excitebots: Trick Racing will release for the Nintendo Wii on April 20th. You can find out more in the latest issue of Nintendo Power.

Patrick Steen