REVIEW: Excitebike

Game: Excitebike
Original Launch: October 1985
Relaunch: October 2010
Rating: 7 stars


Excitebike is a pretty simple motorcycle racing game. There are three game modes: Selection A, Selection B, and Design. Selection A is essentially practice mode,

Red, Blue, Purple and... crap, I can't think of any other colors. Make two of them purple.

where you ride through 5 different tracks trying to beat the best time. Selection B has all of the same tracks, but you are racing against three other riders. These guys are really just extra obstacles, though. Their race times have no effect on your placement. (As a matter of fact, no matter how many times you pass them, those bastards keep respawning all over the track.)

Okay, now you're just being a dick.

Excitebike is best played with a second person, even though there is no official multiplayer option. Just pass the controller back and forth in between races. It's not as much fun taunting Purple Rider #2 when you beat the best time by 2/10 of a second. Plus, what's the point in designing a course from hell if you can't torture some poor soul with it?

At least you can get some sick pleasure in knocking the computer riders off their bikes over and over again.



The Design feature suffers on the NES because you can't actually save anything like you could on the Famicom. Once you power down your system, your tracks (and your best times) are lost forever. However, now that you can play Excitebike on an emulator, you can save all of your tracks to play later. This helps a lot with replayability.

I remember liking Excitebike a lot as a kid. The music is catchy as hell, and the mechanics are super simple: gas, turbo gas, and the directional pad. You can just jump right in, even if you only have a few minutes to spare. The game doesn't have a lot of depth, but if you're looking for something to whip out at a party (something that won't get the cops called on you), this should do just fine.



Review in a Haiku
Don't follow too close
Or I will knock your ass down
Again and again