Excitebike (NES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
1,014A playthrough of Nintendo's 1985 racing game for the NES, Excitebike.
0:00 Selection A, all five tracks
9:43 Selection B, all five tracks
20:58 Design mode
Excitebike is one of my favorite games of the NES's launch line-up, and judging by the number of releases the game (and eventually, series) has seen over the years, I'm guessing that holds a soft spot for a lot of 80s kids.
(On that note, if you'd like to see some gameplay from the exotic Hudson Soft port for the Japanese PC88, check this out: https://youtu.be/Mm4pN-9eAaE )
Excitebike gives you five pre-made tracks to fly around on, and for such a simple game, the mechanics feel surprisingly deep. Once you've memorized the placement of traps and the turbo refills, there's still the matter of navigating the tracks, and this is the real substance of the game.
Every time you hit a ramp, you go flying through the air. Once in the air, you can hold left to raise your front wheel and fly higher at the cost of speed, or you can push right to drop the front end and speed up your descent.
In most cases you should try to land so that your wheels are level with the surface your coming down on - think Tony Hawk. If you don't, you'll crash and lose precious time.
The exception to this rule is what really amps up the excitement and gives the game a lot of its "risk versus reward" gameplay. Here's the trick: as you're coming down from a jump, lean as far forward as you can. Then, just before your front tire hits the road, hit left to pull the front back up. If you nail the timing, the bike will bounce on its front tire as it lands, losing little speed in the process. Even better, if you do this on back-to-back jumps, you can fly some insane distances, and if you're good enough, you can actually launch your bike so high that you fly off the top of the screen and reappear from the bottom. Once you can do this trick reliably, the game becomes even more addictive if you're into playing for best times. I'm no pro at it, but I've always had a ton of fun testing my skill on this one.
And finally, what kid didn't spend most of their time with Excitebike playing with the track editor? It was insanely cool to have a level designer built into a game, and it gave the game nearly infinite replay value. I remember spending hours creating my own tracks and racing on them. It's just too bad that the save feature doesn't work in the NES version. The omission never stopped me from investing huge gobs of time in the design mode, but like sands through the hourglass, I suppose.
Excitebike is a gem among gems on the NES, and that's not meant hyperbolically. On a system known for its endless parade of "classics," Excitebike stands above most. It does so much with so little, and it sold far more than its fair share of consoles in the mid/late 80s.
It's a good, early example of Nintendo doing what Nintendo does best. It's all fun, no bs. Or, if you prefer inane early 2000s pop-punk references, "all killer, no filler" would also be apt.
_____________
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!