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Rig Racer II (Wii) | 
| From: DDI
Category: Video Games
List Price: £19.99
Buy New: £17.99
You Save: £2.00 (10%)
New (7) from £16.47
Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 10169
Platform: Nintendo Wii
Media: Video Game
Batteries Included: No
Operating System: Nintendo Wii
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 0 x 0 x 0
MPN: POP013.UK
EAN: 5060048311518
ASIN: B000V9I8XQ
Release Date: March 14, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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Product Description
Hurtle around Europe's race circuits in one of eight of the fiercest Big Rigs known to man! Test your reflexes at night and claim victory in Challenge mode. NEVER DRIVE FASTER THAN YOU CAN SEE! It's ugly when these beasts come off the road! Can you drive 5 tonnes at 120mph in the wet?
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| Customer Reviews:
IGN review January 10, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
There's a certain appeal to getting behind the wheel of a big rig. A feeling of power, of command. Of being in charge of the most massive thing to roll out onto the highway. Rig Racer 2 seeks to capture that certain appeal, and does so for the most part - the sense that you're driving a big, bulky bruiser of a machine comes across well. Unfortunately, that's about the only aspect of this game that feels like it's done right. Though it's fun for a few minutes to experience what this budget-priced racer has to offer, you'll soon find yourself wanting to step out of the cab and let the real rig riders take over their trucks again.
Inconsistency is the issue - or at least the first issue. Inconsistency in how your rig responds to its environment. In Rig Racer 2, you take on a set of Gran Turismo style racetracks while riding in one of several different big rigs modeled after those you're familiar with seeing out on the open road. The generic Mack and Peterbilt trucks all have stereotypical trucker names like Bandit or Smoke, and are all adorned with some simple paint job (maybe there's a racing stripe or two).
The inconsistency is that these kinds of trucks belong where you'd expect to find them - out on the open road, not on a set of Gran Turismo style racetracks. The courses that serve as the settings for Rig Racer 2's competitions aren't meant for big rigs at all. They're too small and cramped, and often only wide enough for two rigs to ride side-by-side next to each other at once. It's almost as if the tracks were designed for a different game that had smaller vehicles in mind, but were then recycled for this title (and given the track record of development from Data Design Interactive, that's probably not too far off the truth).
And further inconsistency comes into play when you inevitably begin to run into things around the race course. Collisions between your truck and your competitors are handled serviceably well - your rig takes visible damage when it wrecks into the opposition, and the same damage afflicts the other drivers too. But it's in collisions with other objects that things start to stop making sense. Trees, for example, bring your truck to a complete stop if you hit them. As do billboards, or fences, or any other obstacle off the side of the road. That's ridiculous - these are huge, hulking big rigs. The trees should be bulldozed and uprooted if I run into one. The billboards should be knocked down, or at least take some sort of damage. But they don't, and you're instead forced to back up in reverse and lose whatever lead you might have had, surely dropping down to 8th place every time it happens.
And it happens fairly often, as the control scheme employed in Rig Racer 2 isn't the most agreeable of designs. You hold the Wii Remote sideways, as in Excite Truck, Mario Kart Wii or Data Design's own other racing games, and you twist it like a steering wheel to turn left and right. It's fine on straightaways and shallow curves, but heading into a hairpin you're going to have to have a lot of luck to make it through cleanly. A brake and handbrake help to correct and get you re-oriented around sharp turns, but then the camera takes a little while to catch up to your new primary vector.
Rig Racer 2 is additionally home to a variety of other frustrations and glitches, like the ability to turn around and drive through a race course in reverse and still have your laps register as completed on occasion - it's an interesting strategy and lets you experience the best crashes the game has to offer as you plow head-on into the seven other rigs coming around the track in the right direction. But turning around can also be troublesome, as if you're the recipient of a particularly powerful impact when you're trying to race through a course legitimately and find yourself facing the wrong direction, you're almost assuredly going to finish in last place. It takes so long to turn your truck around and get it going the right way again (a combination of camera and control issues and the fact that you're driving a big rig) that by the time you right yourself your competition is likely already lapping you where you sit.
And if all that weren't enough, Rig Racer additionally restricts you from enjoying hardly any of the game when you first power it up, only offering two different trucks to drive while making all six of the rest into unlockables. You have to earn money to open up access to them, and earning money is primarily achieved by picking up hovering dollar sign collectibles scattered throughout each racetrack. But the dollar signs are always positioned way off the main road, so if you try to steer over and collect one of them you're pretty much guaranteeing yourself another 8th place finish. Amazing design choice there. (Sarcasm. That's sarcasm.)
Closing Comments
We brought you a review of Myth Makers: Super Kart GP for the Wii just yesterday - it's another racer recently developed by the same team at Data Design Interactive. And the two games have a lot in common, thanks to the developer's tendency to recycle elements and engines between products. The menu is the same, the controls are the same. The issues with the camera and having trouble turning around after collisions on the track are the same. But Rig Racer 2 is ultimately even less worth your while than Myth Makers - that game at least has some fairly likeable characters and a four-player mode. Rig Racer has lifeless, generic trucks and a maximum multiplayer potential of 2. It can be entertaining for a few minutes to command these rigs and watch them run into one another head-on, but Rig Racer 2 is certainly nowhere near worth your money for a full purchase. Give it a rental at best, and then go back to the other, far better racers available on Wii.
3.0 Presentation
Basic, uninspired menus, no preamble or fanfare before or after races, and several loading screens. The same presentation as other Data Design games.
3.5 Graphics
Very little detail is used overall, but the fact that your truck takes visible damage and can catch on fire is a little bit redeeming.
2.0 Sound
Rig Racer 2 might take the prize for the most annoying sound effect element on Wii - you can hold down your rig's airhorn and constantly blast out the speakers.
3.0 Gameplay
A recycled racing engine that we've seen before, with similar collision and control issues as earlier titles. A big rig should be able to knock over a tree. Come on.
3.5 Lasting Appeal
A fair amount of unlockable tracks, but too much stuff is locked down to begin with. You only get two trucks to choose from in the beginning.
3.0
Bad OVERALL
(out of 10 / not an average)
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