Well, there's a new one coming out in less than two weeks.



I've got mixed feelings. I mean, it kinda looks fun, but I'd be hoping for more than just a prettier version of the NES game.

I loved Excitebike!
But yeah, it kind of seems to be just a prettier version. I might get it depending on the cost.

Actually, I really like what they've done with it.. I mean, honestly.. it wouldn't be excitebike if they did it from a 3rd person perspective or revamped it too much.

Still, it's Wiiware which generally means a looot cheaper than a 'full game' and I think that's what they're shooting for.. Nostalgia.

btw, Dray.. keep working on the after years! I'm dying here! I need to see more of it.. I'm a huge FFIV fan!

Well, that was out of the blue. Um... not sure when I'll get back to it. I had four additional episodes recorded a while back, but I want to focus more on RPGM for a while.

Anyway, I'm one of those folks who liked Excitebike 64. Sure, it was essentially Motocross with engine-overheating turbos, but it was still pretty cool, there was a lot more variety of courses (woo, canyon jump!), there were a few fun different modes (soccer, hill climb, and a track based on the NES tracks), and the track editor allowed for custom track pieces.

Of course, the track editor in this new one might be cool, too. Especially if it allows for both custom pieces and choose the scenery. Then it'd one-up Excitebike 64's editor, as that one you were always restricted to the stadium. Being able to upload tracks online might be nice, too, but I can't see track creation being complex enough for online to be worth it.

So, it came out on Monday. I got it today. I unlocked and beat all four cups in less than an hour.

That's not to say it's easy. There were a few close calls, and one race I did have to re-attempt. I only managed to get an S-Rank on 5 of the 16 courses.

So, as you might expect, it plays pretty much like the original NES game. You hold the Wiimote like an NES controller, 2 (inplace of A) accelerates and 1 (in place of B) gives a turbo boost. You hold left on the D-pad to do wheelies, and pressing up and down changes lanes. The goal in the offline mode isn't to beat your opponents (which, as in the original, are just drone bikers meant simply to provide as obstacles), but to beat a requisite time in order to proceed to the next course. Basically what would happen if they took Time Trial of other games and made it the main attraction. Losing doesn't mean you have to start a cup over, as all courses can be chosen indifidually. Interestingly, the game seems faster-paced in this newer version. But maybe I just haven't played the original in a long time.

The race tracks pretty much have all the same pieces that the original game did. You got the small hills, the large hills, the steep hills, the wacky hills, the half-bridges, the mud pits, the off-roading, the hurdles that you have to wheelie over, the cooling arrows, and the megajump ramps (which, if you're going to crash, those are the best to crash in front of), and so forth.

Wheelies are rather important, as you'll get better jumps if you wheelie off a ramp, plus, if a racer is in the way, you can do a wheelie to ride his helmet and hop over him. And of course, there's the old hurdles that you instantly crash on if you're not doing a wheelie (which took me years to figure out in the original game, incidentally). Also, you can boost off the starting line if you start off with a wheelie.

How you land jumps is also important. Landing level with the ground keeps you going smoothly, otherwise you slow down a bit. Hit the ground at too much of an angle (especially if you faceplant into a hill) will cause you to crash. And I'm not entirely certain about this, but I think that landing level on a hill gets you going faster than if it's flat track.

Turbos are, of course, back. You hit the turbo, your bike goes faster. But if you turbo goes on too long, your bike overheats and stalls for a few seconds. There are two ways to cool off your engine (outside of just letting off the turbo): hitting the cooling arrows scattered around the courses, or causing another racer to crash, either by hitting his front tire or landing on top of him after a jump. Like wheelies, turbos are absolutely essential to getting a new time, so keeping an eye on your turbo meter and watching for cooling arrows is essential.

In the original game, when you crashed, you had to press a button rapidly to recover faster, and only once your bike stopped rolling, which could vary depending on whether you were on a slope or not. In this version, they changed it to shaking your Wiimote frantically to stop rolling faster. I was kinda worried about having to motion control your way out of crashes, but it works well enough.

A feature originally introduced in ExciteTruck makes its way into this title: changing roads. Every course has them. There's these floating icons that, when touched, pops up one of two terrain types in front of you (either the big hill or the megajump ramp). More often than not, they help you get over an otherwise tricky obstacle just ahead of it.

As for how the upgrade looks and sounds, it's not bad. The old stadium courses look pretty much how you'd expect them to look if you took them straight to 3D, and there's some outdoor courses to help mix things up. A few stadiums are repeated in the cups, but considering how similar the actual racetracks are to each other, I couldn't tell you whether there's any similarities beyond the scenery. The sound also recieves an upgrade, sounding softer than the old NES bleeps and EEEEEEERRRRRs, plus the tracks are no longer devoid of music. I think the same guy who does the Mario Kart music did the songs in this one. Just a wild guess.

Speaking of Mario Kart, that's pretty much the feel I'm getting from this game. Basically, take away items, put it into a side-view perspective, and throw in a ton more jumps, and you get this game.

So there's my impressions of the offline mode. And yes, by calling it the "offline mode", that does mean that you can take it online to race other opponents. I'll give my impressions of it, as well as the track editor, a little later.

By the way, it costs 1000 points. For $10, it's not bad.

The track editor. Oh, what fun. But that's how level editors tend to be.

The advantage to having a game where all the courses have simplified designs is that there is nothing the real courses can do that you can't with the track editor. Well, except scenery. You're always restricted to the same stadium. Oh, and you can't create a requisite time. But it's the actual track that's important, right? Yes, that, you can do anything the main game does.

You're allowed up to eight of your own tracks (whether tracks traded from another person is counted among these, probably). Each track can compose of up to 240 spaces, with the various available pieces (including plain ground) taking up anywhere from 1-4 spaces each. Anybody that has created tracks in the original NES game will be in familiar terrotory here, as all the track pieces are once again labled by letters. However, it is somewhat more streamlined.

Press down to add a track piece, press up to delete it. As you're scrolling through the choices, it automatically and quickly shows them in their place, should you decide to keep them there, unlike the NES game, where you had to make each choice in order to see what it was, and wait for it to load it into the map. What's more, placing a new piece doesn't delete anything below it. Rather, it pushes everything after it furthur out to make room for it.

There is also an option to view a list of all the pieces, and edit the list from within, should you choose. It's not very useful for editing a full map, though. Best if it's used to delete all the excess plain track pieces that you don't want, which the editor gives you when you start a new track. It can be handy as a shortcut, too, as the camera automatically goes to whichever piece was highlighted in the list.

Testing the track is easier than ever, as you can do it on the spot. Just say you want to test it, and you can start at the beginning of the track, or anywhere else. So you don't have to race through the whole course if you just wanted to test one part in the middle.

When you're done, you can exit and save, and choose to race in it or send it to a friend. You can also race with it online, though with friends only. Even though you can't choose a time limit for your custom track, it does keep records of your best times on the track (which I don't think I've seen other level editors accomplish), so long as you don't edit it again.

While it may seem initially like you're not going to create an interesting variety of tracks in a game so simplistic in design, it's actually possible to create some rather fun tracks, as I show you with this level I created:



If the screen looks squished, it's because I play in widescreen, but my video capture only records standard and I've got nothing to change that. Oh, and don't mind the name. It's just a random word I like to use, and does not have to do with the firm that has a slightly different spelling.

Anyway, this is a race course I created in this here game. Rather than create some stupid course like infinate flatl ground or infinate steep hills (I created them after ), I decided to create something more serious. This course takes up all 240 spaces that the track editor allows.

In this video, I decided to show the different courses of action at various points during each lap, to show the advantages and disadvantages of each. (I actually go into detail in the video's page.) Despite the seeming obviousness of these choices, it took me several attempts to get this video right. I keep falling for my own traps.

Just for the fun of it, I also include the replay in the video.