Excitebike for Nintendo 64

I loved the look of this game when it first came out. I played the original excitebike for days straight when I was younger. Now it comes out in 3d, and looks and plays exactly like real dirt-bike racing. I had to wait to get it, because it was too expensive for my tastes. I rented it for five days this week, though, and heres what I thought:

GRAPHICS
One word: Sweet! The riders, their bikes, and the course that they ride on are all life-like. The crashes are amazingly realistic, and they will literally cause you to wince at least (if not cry out in surprise) when the bike goes slamming in to the hay barrels and the rider keeps going (after hitting the handlebars of course). Much of the courses have great detail, although I've notcied that the crowd is just a splotch of different colors. Overall,though, I give the graphics five stars (out of five).

SOUND EFFECTS, MUSIC, and SPEECH
These three should really be separate categories. Why? Because in this game the music is good, the sound effects are mediocre, and the speech sucks. The speech is ok at first, the announcer sporadically tells you who is ahead of you and in first by announcing their positions. But then he continues to say the same thing over and over again for the rest of the race. The sound effects are not bad, they're just nothing to gawk at. The buzz of the engine, smash of the bike agains walls, and scream of the rider as he falls down into a large pit is about all there is for this category. And, finally the music is good because there is different music for each course, giving you the feel that you are in a jungle on the congo course...etc. Overall, it gets three stars from me.

GAMEPLAY
This is really what gives the game it's realistic feel. It's pretty simple, if you've played racing games on N64 before (namely MarioKart). You can accelerate, brake, hit the turbo, put your foot down on hard turns to help your cornering, pull back on the conrtol stick to keep high in the air, and then position your bike to be level with your landing. It feels like a real dirt-bike race because you hit a sharp corner with your foot down, then lay on the turbo just before you go up a ramp and pull back on the handlebars to send you flying. I give the gameplay five stars.

VARIETY/OPTIONS
This is where the game kinda loses its excitment to me. Sure, the creators were very creative with some of the options, but it just didn't hold my attention for more than a few days. The two most important types of game to play here are the season and the exhibition. You can only play three seasons (brinze, silver, or gold), which have five races each on three different difficulty levels. You can only play multiplayer on these same courses in an exhibition match. There is a track creator, but it is pretty limited on what you can do, so I didn't even mess around with it. The best thing about the variety they have is the 'secrets' unlocked by winning. These extras are:
-Dessert, where you race to each fire and put it out by riding over it,
-Stunt track, where you try to do tricks off ramps. This is very hard to do and there are only four tricks you can do anyway.
-Original excitebike, original nintendo style!
-Soccer, my personal favorite. Run into a giant soccer ball with your bike to 'kick it' towards your opponents goal.
-Hill Climb, a lot harder than it sounds. Many stages of an almost vertical hill. Make it to the top without falling off the cliff on the side or losing control of your bike and sliding all the way back down.
-And Excitbike 3D. This is the coolest, you can play the orignal course in 3d mode.

For all these options, I'll give 'em four stars because like I said: they were creative, but it just didn't hold my attention long enough.

This is one of the best games for N64. But unless you're a dirt-bike racing fan, I would suggest renting it first.