With the release of the Wii, such situations are luckily a thing of the past. By keeping the remote horizontal or placing it in the accompanying free steering wheel, you can play a racing game in a quite natural way. Monster 4x4: World Circuit immediately goes rough and has giant trucks on the menu. Although... giant may not be the correct term as in-game they don't look all too big.

With a dozen vehicles, varying from oldtimers to cars and even an ambulance or firetruck you can drive on the ten available tracks. Luckily the option exists to unlock rounds in the opposite direction just to make things a bit more extensive. This is all done in the world championship which demands you to end all twenty races well. The tracks are (in the game) spread over the entire world where each territory has its own style. Some circuits contain mud and sand while others are covered with snow and ice plains. However, this doesn't affect your driving much.

Monster trucks would be nothing without obstacles to do tricks on. Therefore there's plenty of jump pads available where you can make a salto, spin or tornado appear out of your sleeve... literally! With the Wiimote you need to make a circular movement around one of the three movement axis. This I found out by experience though, as the manual doesn't find it necessary to explain one bit of this. To make the whole a bit more spicy also explosive barrels are present on the tracks that can be hit into opponents and explode to make them drive slower.

Seeing the short duration of the championship and a limited replayability I would recommend this game more to families with multiple children at home. The controls are simple, intuitive and give an added value to the game that also makes it more accessible for the whole family. Also the multiplayer mode offers more fun than when playing alone. Up to four players can go head to head on the unlocked tracks. Three additional minigames including soccer and a combat mode give some alternative racing fun.