How am I supposed to Nitro when there’s only two buttons?

We are in an era where not every Wii game is ugly.

This is a wonderful time to be alive, my friends. However, some Wii games are still the bastard children of major franchises. Need For Speed: Nitro is a boring little arcade racer from EA that does not excite me.

It reminds me more of Cruis’n USA minus charm and strange women handing you trophies. You drive a car, see, and occasionally you can boost? I could not figure out how to boost and there was no helpful soul nearby. Maybe you don’t boost, but with a name like “Nitro” I would assume as much. There are a number of control options ranging from the wheel to the strange thing I had to do. I held the wiimote with no nunchuck, but I held it as if I were about to point at the screen. I would rotate it left and right to steer and use the A and B buttons to manage the rest.

“Nitro” is plain and boring. I was not very excited. I give them some credit for the drifting which was very easy to pull off. A lot of racers seem to want that to be difficult and to involve you hitting the brakes and the gas and then the brakes and then opening your sunroof and waving to a girl in order to powerslide around a corner so to “Nitro’s” credit they kept it simple so I could focus on racing. Now if only that track design were interesting. There were some shortcuts to take so it wasn’t as claustrophobic as Cruis’n USA as I might imply, but you never fell very free. You can turn around and go the wrong way, which I attempted just to see if I could because the overall feel was so restrictive. I’m not sure if there’s some auto steering in play that helps you stay on track or what but I did not feel in control. Excite Truck felt much more liberating by comparison.