Developed by: Nintendo R&D 1, Published by: Nintendo
Introduction & Bias:
Game unlucky number 13 brings us to a title that I have actually played for several hours: Excitebike. I did not own this game as a kid but I did pick up a copy much later on. This game presented something different and, well, exciting to me as a kid. It's a racing game! I remember playing each of the game's modes to death and different friend's houses since having access to any game meant I needed to play it a lot to make up for the lack of variety in my own gaming library.
Here I am as a 31-year-old picking the game up again and I remember the good feelings I had playing the game when I was younger. I looked forward to playing this one with a bit more of a critical mindset. I wanted to see if all of my knowledge of other games and my mastery of this one would make Excitebike shine a little less after all this time. Let's find out.
First Impressions & Presentation:
Turning on Excitebike is a treat. The player is presented with a bright theme tune for a couple of seconds while they think about which of the game's three modes they should play. The screen itself is also blue instead of black with a brighter blue title written on it and a racing inspired checkered flag border. Overall it's a pretty neat design.
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| Not Pictured: Me wanting to say "On your marks, get set, go!" but that just gets me thinking of Double Dare |
There is only one demonstration in the game to watch but it took me a couple of replays of it to realize that. The demonstration shows a lone motocross racer at the starting gate. Once it starts it avoids a rough patch of terrain on the ground and goes over several sets of jumps before finally wiping out. There is a temperature gauge that stays flat in the middle of its TEMP reading. Finally, there are a couple of other terrain features that are avoided. If the player is astute they will see that the racer tries to land flat on the ground to maintain its speed. It only wipes out when it tries to land flat on a rising jump.
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| Pictured: Ahahahahaha, wipeout! *surf music* |
Playing the game was just as intuitive as ever and I like a lot of the nice touches in the graphics. As the player speeds down the track there are several types of people such as coaches and cameramen the will actually reverse positions when the player passes by them. There are Nintendo logos and the track's time record on the wall in front of the stadium seating. The racers themselves animate well with a lot of different sprites depending on whether the bikes are tilted forward and backwards. Finally, the player racer gives a signature thumbs up while making a wheelie whenever they cross the finishing jump. The music tracks, while brief, also add to the tension of starting races, offer a nice victory tune and an encouraging title piece.
Not everything about the graphics are perfect. The game relies quite a bit on palette swapping to give the illusion of different stadiums and the colors picked for the track and the surrounding stadium are not always attractive. Plus, the audience in attendance is made up of kind of a smeared repeating tile to simulate a packed crowd. It works fine when the player is moving at full speed but it looks kind of ugly when standing still. Overall the presentation works well with some good charm but the graphics betray the simplicity of design necessary in early NES games.
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| Pictured: Considering the noodle appendages of the racers they must have all skipped arm day |
In the end, a racing game needs to be about the race and hopefully the speed. The experience is where the game starts to deliver for real.
Experience & Conveyance:
There are many things that Excitebike does right and it's the same things that make me want to come back to play the game even years later. First, there is a good amount of anticipation to the game. The title screen for Excitebike is actually the most effective screen at illustrating the excitement for the game out of the thirteen titles I've played so far. It beats out Super Mario Brothers because the SMB title plays out to total silence which is a little bit creepy. While Excitebike's intro jingle is short it certainly is sweet and looking at the checkered flag border honestly does make me want to get into the race.
Picking the "Selection A" mode and a track number quickly gets me to the starting gate while the whole time the music plays an upbeat "ready to race" music that immediately leads to the three tone start signal. After that it is all about the speed. Here is where my complaints about the graphics begin to matter less.
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| Pictured: "Dun, dun, DUN!" |
Movement in the game is pretty simple on paper but there is a fair amount of nuance to the controls. The up and down arrows make the racer switch to and from one of the four racing lanes. The A button makes the player go and the B button makes the player go faster. Holding the B button will cause the bike's radiator to overheat if it is pressed too long and the really stressful engine noise gives the player plenty of warning about a potential overheat. As the player speeds up all of the graphics begin to make sense. The ugly smear graphic for the fans in attendance becomes a blur. The roadside markers pass by in a streak. The track hashmarks become single lines. The game really does a lot to feel fast. Then the player must deal with the obstacles.
Spicing up each of the game's five tracks are lots of bumps, jumps, dirt patches, and engine cooldown strips (just roll with it). This is where the left and right arrow get their exercise. At any time the player can shift the racer's weight forward or backward. If this is done on flat ground the racer will do wheelies and this is not just for showing off. Certain obstacles can only be passed over safely if the player lifts their front wheel off the ground. Also, every single jump will give the player a ton of air if their speed is high. To maintain speed, the player needs to land with both wheels flat on the ground or they will bounce and slow down. The trick is that the player may be landing on another ramp. If the player's front wheel is less steep than the slope of the ramp they will spend the next few seconds cartwheeling over and over until they clear the obstacle and finally get thrown off their bike onto the side of the track. Then begins the walk of shame...
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| Pictured: Mashing A to get on the bike faster! |
All of these elements leads to a pretty technical racing experience on top of the speed. Bouncing too much off of ramps, falling too much, not boosting enough and boosting too much may cause the player to not get a third place finish. The objective for the player is to beat a time attack. The top score is posted on the wall of the stadium while the third place time is on the HUD. Getting a better time than third place advances the player to the next race and anything slower than that earns the player a game over. There are only five tracks in the game but the player can pick "Selection B" and add in some challenge: other racers.
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| Pictured: Who invited you? |
In spite of the competition, Selection B is still a time attack mode. This time the player must contend with an unlimited number of opponents. While the player witnesses three other racers at the starting line more will spawn in front of and behind the controlled racer, though only four racers can be present on the track at a time. The player should quickly find out that the rear wheel of their dirtbike is the most powerful weapon in the world. Contact with the rear of any bike, player or computer, will send the bike in the rear tumbling to their next fall. On top of that the computer cheats. Like, a lot. The computer gets to move at speeds very different from the player and can create some nigh-impossible roadblocks to navigate.
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| Pictured: No way out |
Fortunately since this is still a time attack and not a race for first place, the other racers just provide more obstacles rather than competition. Besides, the worst obstacle in the game is the player itself. Enter: "Design" mode. Yes, the player can make a track with their own editor. Mario Maker it ain't but it was pretty unique for its day. Essentially the player can drive along the side of the track and pick places to leave different obstacles by selecting their corresponding letter from the menu. If the player doesn't like their selection they can go back and redraw it as long as they don't move forward. Trying to drive past the most recent obstacle will force the player to pass the whole thing so there is no doubling stacking of turbo jumps or anything like that. This can lead to some really chaotic and poorly designed tracks but it can lead to something *magical. More on that in the Trivia section. The player can, in theory, save and load a track for further editing but this is all that happens when the player loads a track.
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| Pictured: "I can't even put my mouse on the progress bar to see if it is doing anything!" |
Excitebike is a game that is really easy to figure out. The controller only has 6 buttons, after all. The feedback the player gets when using the boost will prevent excessive overheating. Interacting with other racers is simple and navigating the obstacles is pretty intuitive. The only things that are not clear on the track are the engine cooldown arrows and the wheelie speed bumps but a little experimentation can yield quick results. The design mode is a little obtuse and doesn't completely work but overall the game is very easy to pick up and play.
Verdict & Score:
Excitebike is one of the games today seen by many as a classic and one of the best games on the system. Don't get me wrong, I had quite a bit of fun racing through a few rounds of this game but it was hard to enjoy my whole hour. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that I did not have to re-master the controls since I was so familiar with this title but I don't think that's the whole story. The game is short. I mean, really short. With 5 tracks and two modes to play it really does not have a lot of staying power. Also, while the graphics and sound design are effective they are still pretty basic which does leave a lot to be desired, especially since no music plays during the races. If I played Mario Kart today with no background music I would probably find that to be less entertaining, too.
All things considered I am going to give Excitebike a 6(7)/10. I am willing to call this game one of the fair ones but my optimism for the NES library makes me think that I am going to have plenty of games to fill out the 7, 8, and 9 spaces. Besides, as far as this review column is concerned, a 6/10 is still a worthwhile play. Check it out if you have never given Excitebike a spin.
Factoids & Trivia:
Several versions of Excitebike exist as this was still the era of Nintendo arcade games. It seems that Japan kept a lot of the neat toys for themselves as the arcade version of the game had more levels and an actual difficulty mode. On top of that another version of the game was released on the Famicom Disk System in 1988. That version actually allowed saving and loading of custom tracks. The jerks.
One of the most amusing things to do besides causing fatal injuries to opposing racers is to go as fast as possible. It is possible on a custom track to lay out engine cooling strips and the short turbo jumps in a way that the player can break the normal speed cap. Using the boost over a turbo jump increases the player's speed but if another turbo jump can be landed on and chained together then the game never slows the player down. Eventually relative causality breaks down and the player's engine noises will end, the game can't draw its sprites fast enough to keep up and the player will jump so high that they will break through the bottom of the screen and on to the track again. Watch it in this video!
The game still has many copies in circulation and it seems like it is easy enough to get a copy for $15 or less. Not a terrible price. I'd rather pay less than $10.
Coming up next is a game I hadn't heard about until Smash Brothers Melee: Ice Climber. Until then, stay frosty.
Sources:
NES box art:
Ebay prices researched on March 9th, 2016
Obligatory wikipedia page:
Gamesradar puts this game at #28 of all time. It's a bit lower on my list:
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