Classic NES Series: Excitebike

"Excitebike manages to outrace most of the NES Classics"

Excitebike was a fairly popular (though fondly remembered) NES game. It was pretty "extreme" for its day, with cool stunts, wheelies, and a pretty fast pseudo-3D graphics style. When it released in the United States, the track editor's save feature wasn't functional, a relic of the Famicom's disk save system that wasn't implemented in the NES. The track editor was fairly advanced and unique for its time, and the game could (theoretically, assuming the save system had worked) be played endlessly. The game was revolutionary in many ways, but more than that it was just a whole lot of fun to play. Amazingly, unlike most of the NES Classics, Excitebike holds up extremely well against today's games.

Graphics
There's no doubt that this is the most advanced graphics engine of all the NES classics. Obviously it isn't TRUE 3D, but it sure looks good. And it's smooth running, too. The crowd in the background looks pretty cool, the other racers are all just as detailed as yours, but the track features steal the show. Depending on the time of day, the tracks can be brown, black, or tan. There's no typical NES sprite clipping, which is INCREDIBLE for a game that uses this kind of graphics.

As a port to the GBA, it loses some of it's charm due to resolution scrunching. This is unavoidable, and the only game that managed to survive this was Donkey Kong. Unlike the other NES Classics, Nintendo added a feature (or rather, fixed) to the game: you can now save your custom track. Only one, though, which seems like a waste of EEPROM.

Sound
All the classic sounds are here, and the one incredibly annoying opening song is still here. It doesn't sound bad, and the engines sound pretty realistic for a NES game. Nevertheless, it's not one of the better sounding NES Classics.

Value
With a fixed track save editor, plenty of pre-created tracks, and gameplay that remains fun without requiring nostalgia, this game is probably worth picking up. It's still questionable whether it's worth $20, but for anyone who MUST buy a NES Classics game, this one is probably most worth the money.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/16/04