Excitebike

Excitebike is Nintendo's side-scrolling motocross racing game for the NES, released in North America in 1985. Developed and published by Nintendo, it puts the player in control of a motorcycle rider tackling dirt courses built around speed, balance, heat management, and carefully judged jumps. Its bright, readable presentation makes the track easy to scan, while the quick pace asks for steady control rather than simple button mashing. As an early NES racing game, Excitebike turns a compact set of rules into a memorable arcade challenge.

The standard single-player race modes offer two ways to take on the course. Selection A is a solo time trial, while Selection B places rival riders on the track. To progress, the rider must finish a preliminary race in third place or better and earn a place in the championship race. This simple qualification structure gives each run a clear immediate goal and encourages repeat attempts as players learn where to accelerate, brake, and position the bike.

Racing uses a straightforward but demanding control scheme. One button accelerates normally, and a second activates a faster turbo boost. Turbo can create the burst of speed needed for a fast finish or a long jump, but sustained use overheats the motorcycle. When the temperature gauge fills, the bike stops until it cools down, turning reckless boosting into a costly mistake. Cooling arrows placed along the course provide relief, so route awareness and timing are as important as raw speed.

Every jump asks the player to manage the motorcycle in the air. The directional controls move the rider between lanes and adjust the bike's angle before landing. A level, two-wheel landing preserves momentum; a poor landing can cause a crash or a significant loss of speed. The courses add rough sections, gaps, ramps, and narrow passages, while other riders can become moving obstacles in Selection B. Each race becomes a balancing act between taking the fastest line, avoiding traffic, and landing cleanly enough to keep the bike moving.

Excitebike's five main tracks steadily make those decisions more demanding. Long straights invite the use of turbo, but their jumps and hazards make it dangerous to hold the boost without planning ahead. Different ramp shapes affect the rider's trajectory, and the track can punish a rushed approach with a wipeout or an overheated engine. The game is easy to understand from the first race, yet its better times come from recognizing the rhythm of each course and treating every obstacle as part of a larger racing line.

A standout feature is Design Mode, which lets players assemble custom motocross tracks from a selection of hurdles and set the lap count before racing them. The mode turns the player from racer to course designer, allowing jumps, rough terrain, and other obstacles to be arranged into personal challenges. The original NES cartridge includes design and play functionality, though the save and load options were intended for hardware arrangements not available to the standard North American cartridge. Even without persistent saves, the editor was an unusually creative addition to an early console release.

Excitebike was designed and directed by Shigeru Miyamoto. The smooth horizontal scrolling technology developed by Nintendo for the game helped establish techniques later used on Super Mario Bros., including a more natural sense of acceleration as a character gathers speed. The game also began Nintendo's Excite series, which later returned to motorcycle racing in Excitebike 64 and explored other fast, stunt-focused racing ideas in Excite Truck and Excitebots: Trick Racing.

The NES original has remained accessible through several Nintendo re-releases and compilations, including the NES Classic Edition, Virtual Console services, and the 3D Classics version for Nintendo 3DS. Those later editions underline why the game endures: Excitebike's appeal comes from direct controls, tense risk-and-reward decisions, and the satisfaction of carrying speed smoothly over a course. Whether chasing a qualifying finish, trying to improve a lap time, or testing a self-made layout, it remains a concise example of Nintendo's early approach to competitive arcade play.