Classic NES Series: Excitebike
- August 05, 2004 00:00 AM PST
There are things that rock and there are things that don't. Excitebike is among the former, at least according to Billy Squier.
How does one review a game that, as of this year, is a full 20 years old? Well, take a trip back to those heady times when Cindi Lauper�s �Girls Just Want to Have Fun� plagued the airwaves and video arcades were the rage. Those arcades of old bore no resemblance to the DDR-atoriums of today. These were seedy places frequented by what today we would call �at-risk youths,� then called �hoods.� Blame S.E. Hinton and Matt Dillon. Within, you could expect the din of hundreds of cabinets competing to be heard over Billy Squier�s �Stroke.� Those were the fires in which Excitebike was forged.The game�s graphics are state of the art for that period; you can see the goggles on the rider. Control is straightforward; you push up, you go up, etc. Sound is par for the course in the era of �turn the sound off and listen to Metallica with your headphones.�
Tons of people used to play this game in the arcade. It was cool then, and this version is the same, only smaller�and with a track designer.
