Custom Music Is Excite-ing
November 28, 2006
Whenever a puzzle in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess has me stumped I walk away for a bit and switch games over to Excite Truck, another Wii launch title from Nintendo. It's a fun racer and a great distraction that doesn't require much concentration to play, and it's certainly enjoyable to tilt the Wii remote to steer the truck around the track. One part of the Excite Truck experience that has disappointed me is the generic rock guitar soundtrack. That music has got to go. Luckily the developers saw my dissatisfaction coming and made it possible to load one's own custom music into the game. It's all done with the magic of the Wii's SD card slot. This kind of thing has been done before on other consoles, but this is my first exposure to the world of custom game music.
All I have to do is copy MP3s from my computer on to the card and then slide that card into the Wii. Before each race I can choose to switch the default in-game music off and instead select a song from the SD card to play instead. The chosen song will then loop during the race, and the game even remembers which songs are assigned to which tracks, meaning that when I return to the game later it retains my musical selections (so long as those songs are still on the SD card, of course).
It's important to choose the right music for Excite Truck racing. My library of power ballads just won't do. Instead I've found myself speeding along to songs from other games. Suddenly Excite Truck becomes an even better game when it's teamed with the sounds of F-Zero GX and Super Smash Bros. Melee. Here's a sample of my in-game playlist, cheesy '80s tunes and all:
- "Big Blue" - F-Zero GX (great for tracks with large ponds)
- "F-Zero" - Super Smash Bros. Melee (a racing classic remixed)
- "Yoshi's Island" - Super Smash Bros. Melee (surprisingly appropriate)
- "Bullet Station, Act 2" - Sonic Heroes (something good came out of that game after all)
- "Rainbow Road" - F-Zero X Expansion Kit (Rockin'!)
- "I Can't Drive 55" - Sammy Hagar (it had to be done)
- "Unbelievable" - EMF (this song has been tainted by those stupid commercials for crumbled cheese sweepings)
- "Theme from Mission: Impossible" - U2, Mission: Impossible [1996] soundtrack (I dare you not to grin like a fool while racing to this one)
- "Eye of the Tiger" - Survivor (if you have to ask, you'll never know)