Excitebike is one of the best of all the old NES games, featuring solid motorcycle mechanics and high replay value.
User Rating: 8.7 | Excitebike NES
Most really old NES games feel awkwardly dated today due to the fact that they're predominantly very simple. Although they're fun to play, most people will play games like Balloon Fight and Ice Climber for about 15 minutes before getting bored. Excitebike, on the other hand, never gets old, and it was one of the first and best racing games released on the NES. In fact, Excitebike is one of the best of all the old NES games, featuring solid motorcycle mechanics and high replay value. Like all games of its era, Excitebike is very simple. There are three modes: racing alone, racing against computer drivers, and a track editor. The solo mode is a time trial of sorts, giving you a minimum time you have to beat to make it to the next race. The competitive mode sends an unlimited amount of computer drivers at you, and while you don't really compete against them, it's still fun to cut them off and force them to crash. Finally, the track editor is pure gold, allowing you to set up a straight course with any of the games obstacles, all 25 or so. Even though this game is one player only, you'll greatly enjoy making new tracks and passing the controller around as your friends try to race them. Of course, every track in Excitebike is straight as an arrow. The only variables are the location and spacing of the obstacles. Still, those obstacles have a lot of variety to them, including a host of ramps, hills, mud patches, and the like. The five standard courses available from the start have different pacing and difficulty, and beating the requisite time can actually be quite challenging. Of course, you can always skip ahead and play any track you want to, but you won't get the satisfaction of progressing to the end naturally. The driving mechanics are, to put it simply, very well done. For starters, you'll be worrying about moving left and right (or up and down, since the view is always from the side). Many obstacles force you to quickly move back and forth between the four lanes on the track. More importantly, you'll spend much of your time in the air, and you'll have to land carefully (pressing up or down to control your position in the air) to prevent a crash. Crashing will kill your time, as your bike is automatically sent to the side of the road, and you'll have to tap the A button quickly to get back on. Another mistake that might send you off the road is overheating your engine. The A button pushes the gas, but holding the B button gives you something extra, at the price of gradually heating your engine. Before your engine overheats, you'll hear a warning sound, and if you let it overheat, you are forced to pull over and wait a few seconds to begin again. Letting go of the B button gradually cools the engine to a safe level. Technically, Excitebike gets the job done but doesn't really impress. The graphics are solid, as there is a fair level of detail to the drivers and the obstacles. People with cameras dot the sidelines, which is a nice touch, but the identical faces of the crowd is a turn off (although it seems to be a problem shared by many video games even to this day). The sound effects, from the engine revving to the bike crashing, are pretty good. The music, on the other hand, is virtually nonexistent. Two or three five second clips are all that's to be found, although you'll be humming them incessantly. Back in 1985, Excitebike was one of the best games around, and today, it certainly holds up well. Although other racing games like Mach Rider, Off Road, and Rad Racer may have had more substance, they all came later and were not nearly as original. With addictive gameplay and an innovative track editor, Excitebike was quite the revolutionary game.
