How terribly exciting...

Excitebike will no doubt be remembered fondly by older gamers. After all it was one of the original launch titles for the NES way back in 1985. Some might be dubious and question if a game this old is worth purchasing for the Virtual Console, but worry not this classic game has somehow managed to retain its fun playability and charm. Understandably the graphics and sound department look very dated now, but we can forgive that because it is still fun to play.

The gameplay takes place in a side-scrolling fashion and you can move between the four lanes to avoid other racers and obstacles. There are hills to give you air, tilting forwards or backwards will allow you to position yourself for your decent and hopefully keep up your momentum. You can also pop wheelies too. The controls are simple, one button accelerates as you would expect and the other acts as a turbo but you need to use it sparingly or your engine will overheat.

There are five tracks in total, to progress from one track to the next you need to finish in the top three against your opponents. Completing the game doesn’t take much practice, but it’s so much fun to play you will probably want to come back and try and beat your best track times.

Sadly there is no two player option, but interestingly the game does include a track editor which offers a bit more long term fun. The Virtual Console release is an improvement on the original which didn’t have the ability to save your creations. It seems Nintendo were planning to release a peripheral in the early days to enable this, but it never saw the light of day!

Here is a good example of a game which doesn’t need flashy graphics or sound to be fun. The controls work like a dream and popping wheelies over hills still makes us feel like Evel Knievel even though the game is now over 20 years old! Excitebike is easily still worth a look today for just 500 Wii points.