Game of the Week 05/2007: Excite Bike

In Games



Excitebike (エキサイトバイク, Ekisaitobaiku) is a motocross racing video game franchise made by Nintendo. It first debuted as a game for the Famicom in Japan in 1984 for a price of 5000 yen. (...)
Whether the player chooses to race solo or against computer-assisted riders, he/she races against a certain time limit. The Goal is to qualify for Excitebike (the championship) race by coming in at third place or above in the challenge race (preliminary race). The time to beat is located on the stadium walls (for first place) and in the lower left corner (for third place). In any race, the best time is 8 seconds ahead of third place. When the player places first, then they get a message: "It's a new record!"
The player controls the position of the red motorcycle with the Y-axis of the directional pad, and controls acceleration with the A and B buttons Using B causes improved acceleration, but causes the motorcycle's temperature to increase as shown on a bar at the bottom of the screen. If the temperature exceeds safe limits (the bar becomes full), the player will be immobilized for several seconds while the bike cools down. If the bike goes over an arrow, it is automatically cooled down. (...)



Without a question Excitebike is one of the best games available on the good old NES. The tracks are well designed and there's always room for imporvement in your runs. Controls are near perfect, too.
From time to time I enjoy a round of Excitebike or two. It's a blast no matter how often you play.
And the best thing is the level editor. Nice feature.

Box-art time!





Your favourite this time? I somehow like the Japanese one more. The red cartridge makes it interesting. On the other hand the American version has the *somehow* cool pixel graphic on the cover...

And what would fit better than games and Lego?


More pics like that:

Alright, another game I own, so plenty to talk about. Coincidentally, I am currently in the middle of playing through Excitebike 64.

This is the 3rd game I ever owned for the NES. I believe this game was picked as a result of looking at the original NES pamphlet/poster that came with the games. My friend and I had played for a while on the regular mode, and then went into the ‘Design a Course’ mode. We started placing ramps and structures on the track, and he wanted me to place a jump on the top of a structure, which of course you can’t do. We were a little baffled at the Save/Load commands not working. Years later, I read that those were never implemented. I had so much fun racing my own courses against the computer opponents, especially with wiping them out when you slide into their front tire.

They sure made the overheating sound annoying. Oh, and when I used to play the game, I did not realize that you could make your rider get back to his bike faster by tapping A & B. For years, I just waited it out for him to walk slowly back to his downed bike.

Excitebike was an amazing game. I didn't really enjoy much Bike racing games but this one I enjoyed. Nes version is better then the N64 Excitebike. I wouldn't mind checking out Excite Truck. Whats next Excite Boat?

Fun game. The course design mode was great.

This game is one of my favourites (hence why I chose it) it's a game that is pretty simple to play yet fun. It's good for a ten minute blast. I never really tried the track design/edit mode but i'll give it a bash. I need to get Excitebike 64 soon.
In this case I prefer the japanese box art, although the pixelated one is also cool.



Oh yes I almost forgot. That mode was fun.

This game is one of my favourites (hence why I chose it) it's a game that is pretty simple to play yet fun. It's good for a ten minute blast. I never really tried the track design/edit mode but i'll give it a bash. I need to get Excitebike 64 soon.
In this case I prefer the japanese box art, although the pixelated one is also cool.

I can't choose there both very good.

Terrible game. control really pissed me off.

The N64 version is excellent.

I didn't care much for it either. It was pretty boring, I mean it was the same thing over and over again. The levels or tracks was basicly the same, except for some bumps and jumps...

I still love playing this game, boring as it may be. Never really got into level creation too much, just tried to get awesome times.

Boxart goes to U.S. (NTSC) as usual.

I tried to get into Excitebike when we had it as one of the high score challenges a few months back, but I didn't really enjoy it. Not my sort of game I guess.



Well, the European boxart is usually pretty good too, in my opinion, but it wasn't a European one this time of course.