I was addicted to this game as a kid. At bed time I would sit up listening for my parents to go to bed and then once I knew they were dead asleep I would jump out of bed and play for hrs until the sun came up. Got grounded a few times after I was found passed out in the floor controller in hand and the game still running
I did the same thing...oh the memories of the '80's man. One time my dad (r.i.p.) woke up to go to the bathroom, and caught me and said, "boy, cut that damn thang off, and go ta bed"
Yes sir!!! Wore out that DPad playing this before school, after school, sneaking downstairs at night to play... I LOVED this damn game for about a year straight...
This is by far my all time fav NES game. This was the first game I ever spent endless hours and days playing, constantly making new tracks and trying new things. It felt like such a big deal to create my own tracks
Hey man, this was my first ever video game! Christmas 1987. I didn't even know video games excised, woke up and a NES console and this game were under the tree, played it non stop all holidays. Still love the game to this day. Awesome to hear the history behind it. Thank you.
Within the first 6 months of getting an Nes I hit the motherlode (end of 1986) and got a huge 10 game infusion. You see, I suffer from a severe medical disability and have had 8 neurological (brain surgery) procedures so far in my life. Whenever I have to go in for a surgery, I bring my games with me (still do). At the time I only had 3 games- Mario/Duck Hunt and Castlevania. Basically, my entire family kind of screwed up in a sense. They all decided I should have a (as in one) new game to help give me something to do. They all decided to go out on their own to buy me that "one game" and before the day was done it was like an Nes delivery service. I was almost 6 years old and I had a rudimentary understanding of money as in I knew these games were expensive. I wound up getting a couple of duplicates (2 copies of Excitebike and an extra Castlevania). At 6 (basically), I was absolutely overwhelmed and even though my parents tried to get them all to take some back...they weren't hearing any of it. The extras I returned for new games. Even though I got so many amazing games at once the only thing I wanted to play was Excitebike. I spent 2 months in the hospital playing nothing but Excitebike for hours on end. Man, I still love that game too this day. Addendum- Myamato says "I try to avoid all trends." Then he creates a trend or genre that reshapes the entire gaming landscape with Super Mario Brothers. Even though I'm no longer the huge Nintendo fan I once was, all gamers owe that man and Gunpei Yokoi a debt of gratitude. Don't get me wrong, we play everything at our home...just not a ton of Nintendo stuff. We have every Nintendo console/handheld that they have ever produced.
Brother your videos are something special! The time, your voice tone, music, bio, just everything! A true pleasure to watch, wish it was longer when I saw the play time. Excite bike is a true classic, played it for hours and hours, simple and satisfying!👍
Myiamoto is such game designer genius. We are so fortunate to live along with him and be able to experience his genius. All he wants to do. Is create experiences that are fun.
Great to see a new video from you Tyler. This was one of if not my first game that I had my parents buy me after getting the system for Christmas in 1985. I still play it to this day and was really pumped when VS Excitebike was put on the Online System. I don’t remember ever perfecting that speed jumping technique. After 35 or more years we are still finding stuff out about this awesome game. You rock brother!!
I used to make tracks all of the time and play against the computer. This was back in the 80's of course! Those days are so nice to remember. Life was simple when being a kid...
It is definitely not hard to believe Excite Bike sold as much as it did. For starters going back to Excite Bike's release...for its time it was incredibly innovative. No one had ever seen a game quite like it. Excite Bike was far more complex than anything else from 1982-1986 for home consoles. Games at that point were often centered around one to two different mechanics that made up their gameplay. Excite Bike has the temp guage, other racers, landing jumps correctly, covering hurdles, lane changes, slow patches, dirt, turbo pads, knocking riders over, placing in the top 3, and a freaking track editor! Not to mention the games graphics were truly something to marvel at for the time but I digress... Excite Bike was one of those games that pulled off being complex but very easy to understand. If stupid games like Flappy Bird get played by millions it's not hard to see great games like Excite Bike get the attention it deserves. The only baffling thing is...like always Nintendo never capitalized on ideas they freaking pioneered. Can you imagine an Excite Bike for the 16-bit generation?! I mean, a full out no punches pulled 16-bit version of Excite Bike on the Snes with battery back-up?! I would have bought it day 1.
Amazing reply. I'm actually a beginner game dev and I'm trying to specifically make a game like excitebike but fix the aspects I I don't like. And it's honestly going well so far. I hope i make it different enough to stand alone though. The gane looks and plays very similar rn which is awesome but I am absolutely not trying to remake excite bike. I want to make it an actual racing game not time trials. That's the biggest difference but there will be many more . If I fail to learn the ai aspect I'll just drop the project but we will see. I'm already making what i would consider "improvements" so it's exciting 😅
I love your narrative style. You pay close attention to the details and facts of the game and you give good context and Exposition, explaining what the market and pop culture situation surrounding a game was at the time. The game is what stays in focus, and you don't do a lot of grandstanding and injecting your own criticism or opinions into the piece like other game channel hosts. I love your work. Just found it today!
Excite bike was one of my all time favorite NES games. Simple perfection. I loved the make your own track feature. My friends and I put countless hours playing the game. Then spent countless more running custom tracks. I'd buy an NES tomorrow if I could get an Excite Bike cartridge. Pro Wrestling was another hit we played forever. I was invincible with Star Man! And it's music is still playing in my head to this day! Lol😂
One thing I don’t hear much about is Miyamoto’s involvement in the early sports titles. Thanks for shedding some light on that! Some of my earliest NES memories were watching my cousin play Excitebike. He was a couple of years older than me and I was never quite as good as him. The tips in all of your videos really breath new life into some the most well known games ever. Great work!
Brother, you are a great example of less quantity but MORE QUALITY!! Your channel puts out awesome videos. When I eat dinner I need a WW2 documentary on and when I eat breakfast I always watch either YOU or AVGN. THANKS FOR BEING AWESOME 😊
Don't forget to like and share this video as much as possible as it really is critical for the channel! Thanks again so much for taking time to watch and comment.
Anyone else bust out laughing when they heard the overheat alert 😂 I used to hate that as a kid...I feel the same way now as an adult whenever I see the check engine light
This video brought back so many awesome memories. I loved this game when I was a kid. This game was the 2nd or 3rd game that I ever bought with my own money that I earned instead of saving birthday money or something like that.
Sometimes, it takes explained perspective and hindsight to see something clearly. I remember seeing and playing a VS Excitebike cabinet once at what was then either a Lawsons or a 711 (I don't remember which... it was late '84/early '85, and the place changed brands about 4 times that decade alone). The NES clearly hadn't launched yet, so I didn't know I was trying to play something that was looming over the horizon. I didn't actually play the cart until about 3 or so years later, and when I tried to tell other kids I had played it before the NES was a thing, the natural reaction was to call me a liar, since I *clearly* made it up. I mean, how could you play a game for a console that didn't exist yet? I started to think maybe I did make it up. I had no idea about test marketing back then. And even when I later heard about it, most of the stories point out how they hit major US cities with early NES sales first. Nobody ever mentions arcade cabinets with famicom hardware... not unless they're talking about the NES10 timed quarter gobblers that came later. Thanks to this research piece, I feel slightly vindicated, even though that means nothing to anyone but myself at this point.
I remember playing this as a kid... giving my brother the second controller as if he was playing too... it took him a few days to realize that he wasn’t playing...
I liked it on Nintendo, but after seeing what we missed out on in the arcade version it would of made the console version that much more fun. Maybe they were limited on storage? But if you knock off 5 other bikers in a row and not fall off your bike, you actually get the "Excitebike" and turn gold with unlimited turbo without the bike overheating. You also get a fun bonus of jumping busses.
I just commented asking if anybody had ever seen the "excitebike" trick done on the arcade version...your comment just put to rest a 35 year old question I've had!
I played a lot of Kickstart 2 on my C64 before having a chance to play Excitebike. My preteen self was all about Excitebike after that. Thanks for the history lesson!
I loved Excitebike as a kid. I used to "save" my custom tracks by writing down the letter sequence in a notebook, lol. I also managed to pop through the bottom of the screen like that a few times, but never knew how I managed to get that much height. Now I know!
I remember watching my friend play this when we were kids and somehow he jumped so high that he popped out the bottom of the screen. We both flipped out and started just screaming at how amazing it was. But no matter how hard we tried, neither of us could ever do it again. We thought it was a glitch or something.
Excitebike is one of those games that seems like such a one-dimensional experience at first glance, and then you look and you blew an entire afternoon making stunt jumps and trying to beat your best times and you realized what's so fun about it. It's one of those simple classic games that isn't at all effected by its lack of an ending, like RC Pro-Am or the original Mario Bros. It's from that old arcade era and everything about it shows that, and it's kind of great for it.
Or 'Off Road' (both a home and arcade classic, preferred the SNES version over the NES version for obvious reasons) How 'not' to do a game like this is "BigFoot". Was honestly a very bad game from design to execution.
My grandparents bought me third party knockoff Nintendo and Super Nintendo 100 game (it had 10,000 games but they were the same ones renamed over and over) system with a 64 like controller and two OG Nintendo controller, I’d play this game, a war plane game, the first few Mario games, contra, etc. it was like 10$ and everything was literally just renamed but had all the game titles once you entered the game
Great vid. Your comments about excitebike and devil world have got me thinking it would be really interesting to see a series that focuses on the games that influenced popular games before they came out.
I love your Secrets and History videos! I thought that I was a pretty good retro game historian but I learn something new on everyone of your videos. Thanks again!
I remember playing this at the arcade before I finally got it on the NES. The NES seemed easier as you got a warning sound when you were about to overheat. That didn't happen on the excite bike arcade console that we played on. You had to be more careful watch the temperature gauge.
That was a really cool video. I never knew about the super jumps. Excite Bike is always a fun game to pick up and play. I thought Excitebike: World Rally Wii was pretty fun too. Also, Excite Truck was dope. I hope they keep the series going in the future.
I actually got excitebike b4 I even had a nintendo. My aunt asked me what I wanted for x-mas 1 year & I asked for the game despite knowing if I'd actually get the nintendo or not. Still have the console, game & the box the console came in. Lol
Good stuff bro! A lot of people I know don’t seem to care for the game because it’s not as exciting (no pun intended) as other NES games like Castlevania or Mario Bros, but it’s a very fun simplistic game. For being a top selling game, it sure seems underrated. lol
I'm playing Exciebike today. Forget it. I'm self-employed so I can call in sick to myself and know I'm full of crap.... And not worry about it. I can't fire me, I'm my only employee. No secretary, no shipping or receiving, no manager, no accountant, and most of all no computer technician. I can't replace me. So I have to deal with somebody wanting a day off. It's all good. Sometimes people just need to relax with a good game. Take care Tyler. Great video as always.
Sounds like you have a lot of freedom there with your work and that sounds great Stuart. Great to hear from you my friend and thanks for the kind words about the video.
Tyler. It's been fun. I just started fixing PC's and game consoles. It's still slow so the money sucks, but at least I make the rules. I was a cook for 20 years. This is way better.
You can buy new knock off nes for rs400 or 3-4 $ in india since 2008. It also came with 2 controller , 1 av cable , power adapter and it played very good. U could also buy lots of game catridge for 1$ each. They were games collection or good single games .
When I was a kid back in 86 the local pizza place had an arcade version of excite bike...I watched an "older kid" play it and he was able to trap the other riders at the bottom of the screen by causing them to wreck. Once he had all the other riders stuck behind his rear tire, he would keep causing them to wreck until he suddenly started flashing black and yellow and would then be able to speed off without overheating and win the race. A very cool hack that I've never seen done on the nes version! Anybody else ever heard or seen this done before??
Man, I get an AVGN video and one of yours in the same day? Life is good! That overheat buzzer is the second most annoying noise on the NES after the Duck Hunt dog laugh. Thanks for the fun trip down memory lane, Tyler!
What really set Excite Bike apart were the big variety of track pieces and obstacles, while not hitting you with the really hard stuff until the high levels. But even the hard stuff felt doable.
I was today years old when I found out the save and load feature wasn't intended to work. 30+ years of thinking it was just really slow and I was impatient. 😳
I had no idea there was so much strategy in the game. I was always so bad at it as a kid, but always enjoyed playing the game. The tips are super helpful, ill be giving them a try on the virtual console. That famicom add on to save your tracks is insane. I had no idea that existed.
Really hard to find mullet boy at 9,51 and im probably the last one they do! loved this game, my first purchase as an adult to my 8-bit. Fantastic video.👍👍👍
Very well made video. All aspects of the game thuroughly disected. This is one of my favourite NES games. So many hours designing tracks , game night tournaments and generally having fun. Thx for upload.
I was just thinking about your videos this morning and thinking it's about time for another. You never disappoint! It's always fun to see what games you pick. Great job as ALWAYS!
There is another speed/temp hack. If you super Jump and land completely parallel with the biggest obstacle available’s backside, your bike goes into idle, your temp gauge goes complete green, and you go super fast until you either crash, or jump the next obstacle wrong or land wrong. It’s kinda hard to do and you can only do it on custom mode. But if you can pull it off, it’s super cool!!
New to the channel, great stuff. So...you’re definitely the Talking Thrones guy...whose content I was hooked on as well. Can’t get away from that accent. Ha. Keep up the great work!
The strategies mentioned as well as rapidly tapping A while holding B. Have been keys to success in they Nintendo World Championships NES Edition Excitebike challenges.
