There are also other racers on the course - since you're racing for time, they're really just there to get in your way, and you can knock them out of commission by dropping down into their lane and ram your rear wheel into their front tire. Players must navigate the course laid in front of them, launching off jumps and angling their airborne bikes on the way down to land flush with the ground so as not to bounce and lose precious momentum. Since the side-scrolling perspective looks a little dull in still shots, here's a cool unplayable angle instead. Luckily there are spots on the four-lane track that'll cool the engine on the fly to make sure you can keep the speed throttle pulled. Unfortunately, the faster speed heats up your engine something fierce, and if you build up the temperature past its breaking point, your bike will stall out. Your bike has two speeds: fast and very fast. In each race you're trying to get to the finish line in the shortest amount of time possible. For those that didn't grow up in the NES generation, or for those that haven't experienced the original in its various re-releases on everything from the Virtual Console to the NES Classics on the Game Boy Advance, Excitebike's core design is a single player time-trial arcade racer. Monster Games's recreation doesn't go overboard as it retains much of the NES version's gameplay, but updates it in a 3D environment running at 60 frames per second. I've been playing the game for nearly two weeks now - Excitebike is one of my top NES games and I'm totally jazzed to see the game make a return in an updated design.

Excitebike world rally