Excitebike

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Excitebike

Excitebike - NES - USA.jpg

NES - USA - 1st edition.

Developer Nintendo R&D1
Publisher Nintendo
Published 1984-11-30
Platforms NES, NEC PC-8800, PlayChoice-10, Sharp X1
Genres Racing
Themes Powersports
Series Excite
Distribution Commercial

Excitebike is a dirt bike racing video game developed and published by Nintendo and released for the NES on 1984-11-30. It also saw a PlayChoice-10 release and was ported to Japanese 8-bit home computers. The game is the first in the Excitebike series. It was reworked for arcade as VS. Excitebike, and again for the Famicom Disk System which included the ability to play 2-player split-screen version and save your custom tracks and scores to disk.

Personal

Own?Yes. NES USA loose cartridge.
Won?Yes. Best time on all tracks in Mode A and Mode B.
FinishedMode A: 1990s / Mode B: 2024-03-08.

I didn't own this game growing up, but several of my friends had the game, and I always enjoyed playing it. What interested me most was the ability to create your own tracks, though I always wished there was a way to save them. My best time on track 5 in mode B is 1:05:72.

Review

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4 4 4 3 6

Best Version: NES

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

  • For a short while at least, the game is a quite fun.
  • Being able to design your own tracks is a fantastic addition that more games should have had at the time.
  • Requiring the player to not only keep their bike oriented properly, but also manage their heat, speed, and lane, was a good way to make the game more involved.
  • I like how the game changes the palette for each new track.

Bad

  • Although I like the cartoon characters, most of the game's graphics are pretty weak.
  • The music is just a few jingles, and the sound of the overheating engine is annoying.
  • The color palette of stage 5 makes it difficult to see the track. It's also a shame that you can't choose from a selection of palettes in the track designer.
  • I wish the game actually implemented an AI for the other bikers rather than just throwing them randomly on the screen.

Ugly

  • The game is too short. Five stages isn't nearly enough to keep players occupied and track five's best time of 1:06:00 is exceptionally difficult to beat, especially in mode B.
  • The game really needs to be a two player game. I understand that a split screen just wasn't feasible on the hardware at the time, but they could have made it single screen and just punished players who fell behind with added time.
  • The save and load options which worked in Japan, but not in the USA, should have been removed. They were just such a tease! You actually can get them to work with the Famicom Keyboard and a tape recorder, but they were never released in the USA.

Media

Box Art

Documentation

Maps

Graphics

Videos

Review - NES Works.
Review - NES Works Gaiden.
Technical - Save/load feature.
Longplay.

Play Online

NES (Europe), NES (USA)

Representation

Strong female character?FailThere are no female characters.
Bechdel test?FailThere are no female characters.
Strong person of color character?FailThe characters don't appear to have a race.
Queer character?FailThere are no queer characters.

Credits

The original game doesn't have credits, but NES Virtual Console, official sound tracks, and Vs. high score lists help identify several of the developers.

Role Staff
Executive Producer Hiroshi Yamauchi
Director Shigeru Miyamoto
Producer Shigeru Miyamoto
Programmer Toshihiko Nakago
Graphic Designers Minoru Maeda, Takashi Tezuka
Music Composer Akito Nakatsuka
Audio Programmer Yukio Kaneoka

Titles

Language Native Transliteration Translation
English Excitebike
Japanese エキサイトバイク Ekisaitobaiku Excitebike
  • MAME code: pc_ebike

Links

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