I have a lot of regrets about my history with video games. Over the past year, I've used up an enormous amount of space talking about them. I've repeatedly lamented about my younger self's lack of an adventurous spirit, close-mindedness, and propensity to miss out on important cultural trends. And now I'd like to add another one to the list: my deep regret that I didn't start keeping logs of my gaming activities until 1990, by which point I'd forgotten many things about my long histories with the Atari 2600, the Commodore 64, and arcade games.
It stings the most in regard to the NES, which was the first console that I could truly call my own. Had I gotten an earlier start in creating my NES-themed "Superbooks" (which were made from those red-and-white Mead tablets), I might not have forgotten so much about my earliest experiences with the platform and its games.
The sad result is that I have cloudy memories of my experiences with games that were quite impactful and deserved to be treated with more reverence.
Excitebike is one of the best representatives of that type of game.
I'm sad to say that I don't remember anything about how Excitebike found its way into my library (my guess is that I received it as a gift) or how I felt about it the first time I played it in a more-intimate setting. It's all a blank to me. The only thing I recall clearly is that I was originally dismissive of Excitebike because of the unpleasant experiences I'd had with it in the past. When I played it at my friends and cousins' houses years earlier, that is, I found its gameplay to be completely inexplicable.
I remember the same scene playing out over and over again: I'd charge out of the gate, boost off the first ramp, hit the ground, and then immediately fly off the bike. Then I'd wildly mash the buttons in a desperate effort to get back on my bike just so I could fall off of it again five seconds later. Any adjustment I'd make while aerial would prove to be inconsequential--nothing more than a showcase of the game's impressive range of tilting animations--and invariably I'd fall off of the bike and struggle to get back onto it.
I'd try my luck on the game's other tracks (each of which had an alternate color-scheme), but the result would always be the same: I'd spend the entire race violently falling off of the bike. And if I wasn't helplessly falling off of the bike, then I was instead slowly tumbling down ramps or limply hopping over series of speedbumps at Hoveround speed. And the entire time, I'd be desperately gesticulating my need for guidance to the surrounding company that wouldn't respond because it was too busy finding great hilarity in my struggle.
So the only thing I could do was come to the conclusion that Excitebike was another one of those "advanced games" that simply wasn't made for people like me. Rather, I thought, it was made for those pro-gamer types who would spend hours a day at the arcade mastering the controls of super-complex racing sims.
That's why I was quick to dismiss Excitebike when it became a part of my library. I didn't believe that I had the aptitude to competently play it.
I'm certain that I didn't completely ignore Excitebike, though, because that's not how I operated. Even if I had little interest in a new game, I'd play it for at least ten to fifteen minutes and do so because out of respect for the fact that someone was nice enough to give it to me. I'd feel guilty if I failed to make even such a small gesture. So it's pretty likely that I messed around with Excitebike for a while and had "fun" repeatedly falling on my face before ultimately shelving it.
At one point (probably a few months later), I finally made an honest effort to understand Excitebike's gameplay. I did this by reading through its manual and actually taking the time to learn about how its mechanics worked (a radical concept, I know)! That's when I started playing it regularly.
Early on, I played mostly in Selection A, which was basically a time-trial mode. I preferred this mode because its tracks weren't swarming with a million-plus racers (which was weird considering that I'd never see more than four racers at the starting line) who were intent on speeding in from behind and intentionally colliding with me. It was great to be able to focus all of my attention on the ramps and obstacles rather than an endless number of dinks whose only purpose, it seemed, was to swerve all over the place and take out my front tire, which they loved to do in those moments when I was (a) overheating and closing in on a cooldown marker or (b) approaching the ramp whose purpose was to propel me over a mile-long mud pit.
Soon I started to suspect that maybe the game's designers purposely programmed it this way!
"And really," I'd think, "why would I ever want to cleanly and speedily fly my way over a mile-long mud pit when I could instead slowly trudge my way through it and take the opportunity to drink in the sights, like the bleacher walls with their abundance of 'Nintendo' advertisements, the unresponsive cameramen, and the hundreds of thousands of spectators who apparently showed up to watch me ploddingly ride around in mud."
So yeah--I preferred the mode that allowed me to remain on my bike for more than a few seconds at a time.
Once I got a solid grasp on the controls and learned some helpful tactics (like being able to trip up other racers by taking our their front tires), I started trying my luck in the more-competitive Selection B, which was considered the "real" game. And using my newly developed skills, I was able to earn better finishes. The key to success, I learned, was to memorize the locations of the cooldown markers and then proceed to turbo-boost for as long as possible.
(I always thought it was strange, though, that this mode, too, worked under time-trial rules and that the other racers were designed to be moving obstacles rather than victory-seeking competitors. This resulted in Excitebike being something really weird: a "racing game" without any actual racing. I never knew how to properly define this style of gameplay.)
Though, since I wasn't able to truly master Excitebike's midair tilt controls, I'd always run into trouble on Track 3, which introduced monstrously large double-deck ramps. I could handle the game's standard-type ramps just fine, but the moment it started throwing giant constructions comprised of multiple sloped surfaces at me, it was over; I was doomed. If I cleanly cleared such a ramp, it was only because I got lucky--because I just happened to orient the bike in the correct position.
And Track 4 was even worse. I didn't have much trouble clearing its newly introduced two-level ramps, surprisingly, but I struggled with every other aspect of it--the abundance of oil slicks, the long multi-ramp stretches, and the speedbump gauntlets. Its design was just too complex for me. If I drove slowly, I'd be able to more capably clear the track's obstacles, though I wouldn't qualify for the next race; and if I tried to go fast, I'd repeatedly screw up and spend the majority of the race recovering from falls. So this track became a major roadblock for me.
It was only after a great many attempts that I was able to put together a solid performance and qualify for Track 5 (the "nighttime track," as I called it). This track, I learned in a hurry, was far more challenging than any of the previous ones. Basically it took all of Track 4's most challenging design aspects and made exponential use of them. So it was pretty much a nightmare track. Sometimes I could actually perform well during a lap and finish it about, say, 46 seconds, but doing that (or something close to that) three times in a row was an impossible task. I just didn't possess the skill needed to pull off such a feat. So I was never able to earn a first-place finish.
And what I've told you above pretty much represents everything I remember about my experiences with Excitebike, which is sad because I know that I have a deeper history with the game. I know that my friends and I spent a lot of time with it and that we always had fun with it, but I can't recall any of the specific details--when any of it happened, how I felt about the experiences, or how I was shaped by said experiences.
The result is that my memories of Excitebike are instead shaped primarily by my unpleasant early experiences, and thus I struggle to come up with positive memories of the game. And that's not how it should me. I should remember it for what it actually was: a charmingly unique racing game that provided my friends and I hours of great entertainment and plenty of fond memories.
Admittedly, I was hesitant to download it despite its being free because I thought, "Why should I download a game that I'll probably never play because I suck at it?" But that fear turned out to be unfounded. It turns out that I'm actually a solid Excitebike player (I guess I got good at it at some point), and I've felt inclined to return to it frequently.
I have to say: I really like what Nintendo did with presentation. It's cool how the tracks spread out like diorama as the 3DS' 3D slider is pushed upward. This effect provides the game's visuals some striking depth and allows for the incorporation of personality-expanding touches like steel frames and overhangs, tall bleacher awnings, and cloud-filled skies. And what's great is that none of these modern enhancements alter the visual tone or prevent 3D Classics: Excitebike from emitting an all-important classic-8-bit vibe. The original Excitebike's spirit, I'm happy to see, is left completely intact.
3D Classics: Excitebike is a delightful little remake, and I'm going to savor it as much as I can. I'm going to play it regularly and work hard to become an Excitebike master.
And this time around, I won't forget to take notes.
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