Excitebike 64

"Excrement-bike 64 would have been a much more acceptable title"

Back in the early heydays of the good, ol' 8-bit Nintendo, there was this game at my cousin's place (it was a trailer). Its title was Excitebike, which was also one of my first arcade game experiences. And, whenever we got to play his Nintendo with a group of people abound, this was one game that could be used as a party game, in spite of its 1P-only nature; Simply, we'd just pass the controller around, not worrying about who had the best time, or who would advance further than everyone else, but just racing, seeing each other play and progress. The memories.

Now, fourteen years later, Nintendo offers up Excitebike 64. And this revision has everything that makes it a classic...

...dot...dot...dot...

...example of how a fun 8-bit game can be massacred into a smoldering pile of 64-bit excrement. These are the best words to describe Excitebike 64, another of many garbage-quality titles released by Nintendo. Yet again, Excitebike 64 is another example of the critical press following the rule ''We praise titles made by Nintendo regardless of how badly flawed they are, because we hold Nintendo at a much lower standard than most other companies'' (Super Smash Brothers is one such example of over-praised garbage.)

Let me start by getting Excitebike 64's good points straightened out. The game's tutorial is fairly well produced. You're given basic strategies (like how to move the bike) and advanced strategies for more difficult portions of the game (and the controls work as advertised, be it thumb stick or arrow pad); It also gives you an sample of what the game will be. The game has several tracks. And the NES version is replicated on the cart. Now that I have stated what little of this game is good, I can list what makes Excrement-Bike such an awful game.

(FYI: I will using the term Excrement-Bike throughout the rest of the document. Saying Excitebike really evades the issues of how much this title sucks).

The game is obviously trying to appeal to the arcade and simulation fans, but, buddy-buddy, it fails at trying to please either. It don't just fail, it fails fails miserably. Excrement-Bike almost immediately on first lap on the first race of the day, can't start up again for several hours, only to find out it's behind 100 laps, and finishes in last place... long after the crowd has gone home and the people who built the course are ready to tear it down.

First off, the pacing. Your speed is not given in kilometers or miles per hour (at least, not that I know of), but could easily be measured as RPMs. No, I literally mean RPMs-- not the traditional ''RPM x 1,000'', I mean individual RPMs. If the tachometer says 60 RPM, you're bike really is only going a total of sixty RPMs, or just a single rotation per second. This game is painfully slow! So slow, that I could walk casually against these guys' bikes at full speed, finish first, and still be able to overlap them all... twice. Not the good speed arcade racers want, and not the speed I want.

Then, there's the sim fan. They will, undoubtably, like the way the bikes' handling has been replicated. Unfortunately, they're not gonna be happy about the bike-to-bike physics. Unhappy is the wrong term to use-- sim fans will be infuriated, enraged, appalled, and entirely pissed. Why?

Simple: The only thing that they need to discover is all in the wheels, my friend. You see, some jackass decided to create this wise idea that, instead of having motorcycles make impact with each other, collision detection is more like the 1982 game, Joust. So, if you were to clip another racer's front wheel with your back wheel, the other guy goes flying.

''So, what's wrong with that?'' What's wrong is that you remain seated on your bike without nudging one iota. OK, so this was in the NES version. But, comparing technology standards of the 1980's and Y2K, in the NES version, it was a basic case of ''no one knew any better''; In the year 2000, this same error is completely and totally unacceptable! Falling off your bike is another mind-numbing blow, since the riders look as if they had died; They also just pop back up without even running back! Seeing your scrawny little racer on the NES was a more interesting experience.

Excitebike 64's-- 'scuse me-- Excrement-Bike 64's audio, much like the rest of the game, is almost entirely crap; Without the engines, the audio would, indeed, be pure, unfiltered crap. The music is really monotonous and boring, and feels more like it belongs on the morning show at the local radio station.

The announcer only makes the experience so much worse. If you thought the announcer in WaveRace 64 was annoying, after hearing the one in Excrement-Bike, you would really like to shoot him the instant you hear him. He sounds too inconsistent, and there are glaring seams all over the place. Example: In a loud, excited uproar, he yells a racer's name (like ''PLAYER 1... is in... FIRST PLACE''). Next, he immediately sounds less-than-enthusiastic saying something synonymous with wiping out.

And, finally, the graphics. They're decent, but nothing spectacular.

Fortunately, you don't have to buy this crap-in-a-cartridge to enjoy Excitebike fun-- just spend about $10 bucks for the NES version, which is bounds better more than this (although it's just as difficult as I remember it, since I could never make it past the third race). So, in the final words of this review, I write imitating Excrement-Bike's announcer, with bad and unnecessary emphasis on anything that seems fit...

EXCITEBIKE 64... SUCKS!!!
EXCITEBIKE 64... is a... SMOLDERING PILE... of... CRAP!!!
EXCITEBIKE 64... is a... WASTE... of... MONEY!!!
EXCITEBIKE 64... is a... GAME... that should... NEVER... have... BEEN MADE!!!
EXCITEBIKE 64... should... STAY... on the... SHELF... where it... BELONGS!!!
EXCITEBIKE 64... should be... AVOIDED... at... ALL COSTS!!!

MY SCORE: 3.5

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 03/07/01, Updated 10/26/01