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Ridin’ Dirty - Excitebike World Rally By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman When I was about 5 years old, my uncle gave me Excitebike on the NES as some sort of present. I used to play the game quite a bit throughout my childhood; however, I always used to view Excitebike as nothing more than a boringly simple dirt bike time trial game.
You race through an over the top motocross course that’s set in a straight line. The key to the game is learning the track layout to anticipate obstacles and also being able to discern when to use your turbo function; which gives you a significant boost of speed, but will stall out your bike if used to often. The game also comes with a track creator mode, making this one of the first games with a built in level editor. While this all sounds pretty interesting on paper, the game is pretty shallow and repetitive. Meaning, unless you really lack something better to play, this game is going to get stale on you pretty quick. When I had first heard about Excitebike World Rally, I didn’t really think much of it. It seemed as if it was just the NES version of Excitebike with updated graphics and a $10 price tag. It wasn’t until I had watched a video demonstrating some of the new features in Excitebike World Rally which actually made the game look “exciting” that I decided to check the game out. Deep down Excitebike World Rally is basically the NES Excitebike with a facelift; however, it’s the little things that Monster Games (the good people who developed Excitebike World Rally and the newer Excite games, such as: ExciteTruck and ExciteBots) added to the game that actually make it enjoyable.
The first thing you’ll notice is the addition of a tutorial and the extremely light in race commentary. While one would think such a simple game could do without these features, they both add worlds of clarity as to what you’re doing (and should be doing) in game. I never knew that you could pop a wheelie to cut over low walls or clip another biker while popping a wheelie to knock them off the track. The light commentary also helps your performance quite a bit in this game; it acts a gauge informing you where you’ve landed a jump correctly (to the tune of either “Smooth Landing” or “Nice Landing” popping up on screen) so you always know where you could have improved on your last run. The game also has a neat new power up that basically changes the layout of the track on the fly. Normally this involves a flat piece of track mounding up into a ramp or hill, giving you a chance to perform a crazy jump which allows you to bypass some obstacles.
The biggest addition to this game would have to be the online play. For being such a simple racing games, the online races really get intense. The matches normally result in dead heats, so there’s always incentive to play a rematch or get a series going between you and your new online rival. In fact, I think there’s only been a couple people online that have either totally decimated me or got blown away like they weren’t even trying. Online for the most part is pretty lag free; however, that’s almost to be expected considering this game is pretty “light.” At the time of this review the servers do seem to be pretty hopping, so there’s never any long wait for a random match. Graphically the game stands out as both designed and generally boring at the same time. Though the models look good for a $10 download game and the effects like the sand being kicked up by your bike are visually effective; the visuals get a little boring, in that you’re basically looking at the 20 something track components just set up in different orders. One neat thing about the visual presentation is the ability to change camera angles at almost any time during the race. While you only get a profile view and an isometric angle of the race at default, you’ll eventually win “pro” mode which awards you other camera and control settings.
The audio is probably Excitebike World Rally’s weakest area. Not only are the sound effects very boring, but the music doesn’t really inspire me to want to race. In fact, the only thing it does inspire me to do is play some CDs or the radio over the in game soundtrack. I’d highly recommend Excitebike World Rally. Though a bit simplistic, it really is a pretty good go nowhere game. This holds especially true, considering you can do a lot worse with 1000 spare Wii points. If you’re a fan of the old Excite games (especially, Excitebike NES) or just a fan of time trial type stuff, like the tournaments found in the Mario Kart Wii channel; you really should do yourself a favor and look into this game.
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