005 · EXCITEBIKE
Ranked #5 in our Top 5 NES Games of 1985 →
Rev your engines because in this episode we're taking a look at the motocross launch title, Excitebike! See below for timecodes to jump ahead to a specific section. For more on 10-Yard Fight and EVERY NES game be sure to check out NEStalgiacast.com. At our website you can find detailed information about every game we play, our ESSENTIAL GAMES LIST, and links to our Twitch, YouTube, and more!
01:18 - First Impressions
2:58 - Mode A
7:35 - Strategy
9:40 - Mode B
12:44 - Difficulty
15:15 - 2 Player Mode
16:16 - Design Mode
19:10 - Game Design
21:13 - E-Reader
22:19 - Other Versions
23:19 - ESSENTIAL GAMES LIST
29:31 - Contact
30:10 - POST SHOW: Hot Wheels
Excitebike was the first game on the show that we had heard a lot about before playing, and the first where we were having fun almost right away. It's a fast, side-scrolling motocross game with five tracks, and its biggest surprise is a built-in course designer. We liked it, but we couldn't agree it belongs on the list.
What it gets right
- Time trials that turn into rhythm. Mode A is you against posted times, and no course runs much past two minutes. You have to place third or better, then you immediately get another go at a faster time. The first run is falling over and mistiming hills. After 50 or 60 runs it's muscle memory. We called it a primitive ancestor of the Trials games, because you have to think about how you land, and the first game that suits a console, since it rewards sitting down to get better.
- Fuel and heat. A is your cruising speed, while B is faster and makes a different sound, but it burns fuel, and the cool-down patches on the track bring things back. That keeps every run tense. We found the wheelie matters less than we thought: it clears hurdles, and the world-record runs we watched mostly lean right and bounce over everything.
- A fair curve. Sam found the difficulty perfect: the first level was easy once he learned it, the second a little harder, and by the third he was retrying. Joe liked that you feel yourself improve. Sam's tip from the manual, that you can mash A to get your rider back on the bike faster, was a lifesaver, since Joe had been losing time after wipeouts when the rider ended up "a mile away."
- The designer. Joe's favorite part, and the one that tipped him toward liking the game. You can build any course the game itself could, with ramps, blue turbo strips and big patches of grass. One of the courses we built was a long pile of turbo strips ending in a huge jump. We compared it to Mario Maker and want to stream one person building a course while another plays it blind.
Where it falls apart
- Mode B isn't a race. The other riders are obstacles, not opponents, and you only race the clock. Bumping them from the front sends them over, and getting landed on sends you over. Sean never got far into it and struggled with the meters.
- The creator is awkward. You can't go backward, and you can't save a course, so you have to plan it all in your head. We were more amazed it exists than impressed by how it works. We joked that you could write down each piece's letter code, like an old password.
- No two-player. For a game this good with friends, we missed the head-to-head. We couldn't think of a split-screen NES game, so we guessed it was a memory issue.
Beyond the game
There was an e-reader version that let you save courses, though you had to swipe cards every time, and a Satellaview version in Japan with Mario, Luigi, Peach and Toad. It's also in NES Remix, but the challenges are too short for a game you need to get comfortable with.
The bottom line
Play it. The Essential Games List vote was split two and two: Sean said no, since he stuck to the time trial and wasn't good at it, Sam said yes because it was the only one so far he didn't want to stop playing, and Joe said yes by a hair, adding that without the course designer he would have said no. The fourth vote was no, citing a launch-game bias and the limits of the editor. At 50% it passed, but the sheet notes it was later removed in the Best of 1985. It's fun and worth an evening, with or without anyone to build a course for.
Written from our conversation in this episode.
Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.
Excitebike, design your own motocross course for a different racing challenge every time.
And welcome back to Nostalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. And that's the first time I've said that right. So if you were listening to any of the other episodes and were like, I'm confused. What is this about? Now, you know, you finally found out because we were really lazy and we didn't edit the other episodes. And if I did, I betrayed. Okay, never mind. Anyway, let's do some introductions. Who do we have? This is Sean. This is Sam. I'm Joe. All right. Four for four. Same guys all the time. Yeah. Different days. Who are you? What? And I'm Mike. Yeah. But you know, you should know me. Now we're four for four.
This episode sucks. This is a great episode so far. And I'm Mike. So then we're four for four. And this episode will go nowhere. And that rounds out the introduction portion of this podcast.
Let's dive right into Excitebike. Let's get some first impressions. Sean? I was nonplussed by the game. I know a lot of people enjoy this game. It definitely feels more rad than the rest of the games that we played. It's there. I was prettyplussed by this game. I mean, again, I read the manual before I played it because I feel like that's kind of something you got to do with NES games. I mean, everything seems straightforward.
I don't even think. We got to give you like, Sam the manual smith. Yeah. I don't even think you needed to read the manual except for a couple of things. But it was the first game that like, I really kind of, like right from the get go, I was like, okay, this is fun. I'm having fun. Like immediately.
Kind of a mixture of what they both said. I was having fun right away. It was fun to figure out the controls and everything. I also didn't, I didn't read the manual, but, but I also agree that I, I, you know, this is the first one that I've really heard a lot about before. And I didn't think it was quite as good as everyone always talks about maybe because I don't have the nostalgia, but, but I liked it. And I especially started to like it once, once I started creating courses, but I like
that. All right. I think Excitebike is great. I thought that right away, pretty much too. I think it's, it's pretty rewarding from the get go. Like you, you get a feel of like, oh, I need to be doing this or I need to be doing that to be better. And it's also very fast compared to our other games, which, you know, in this game, you know, there's a time trial mode and basically you're just trying to beat the times that are posted
and no course is really over two minutes. And most of the first courses are like, you know, a minute and 30 at the max. So it's like, you're really rushing right through these levels right after that. The only other objective in the game is to pretty much master these things. So I think with that in mind for first impressions, let's just kind of, you know, break this down kind of mode by mode.
So there's mode a to start, which is the time trial by, you know, kind of just you on the course trying to beat the times that are posted. What are our feelings on that? I prefer this mode to the other mode. I think, I think that the other one, there's just too many bikers and it's kind of frustrating, but we're talking about this one. I don't know. I think it's simple. You're going through the course. You're trying not to crash and you're just trying to do it as fast as you can. And it's, I don't know, it's like the title says, it's exciting. Yeah. And I think that one of my favorite things about it is that you can, you can fall, but you can speed your character up back to your bike by rapidly tapping A, which is in the manual. I didn't know that.
That's one of my complaints is how slowly he goes. The manuals are becoming bad. I got to look at the manual. And that's just like, it's great because if it creates, you already have this sense of urgency and the fact that you can do something about it, I felt it was just really, I don't know. I really enjoyed that, you know? Yeah. I think what's rewarding about the time trial is, so you kind of have like, you know, you pick your level, it's like one through five and let's just say you pick with level one,
you have like, you have kind of the time trial mode first where it's like, okay, I have to beat this time. And then you, you get to do the course immediately again, but you have like, you know, there's, there's like a faster time. You've kind of learned the course a little bit. It's like, now it's time to really just like show what you learned after going through the course once. And obviously after you've done this like 50, 60 times, it's like, you know, you know,
all the rhythms and stuff like that. I think that is where the game gets really rewarding is the first time you go through this course, you're bound to, you know, fall over and have to go pick up the bike again. And you're bound to like, you know, not see that the hill is properly coming up and prepare for it or land properly.
But by the time you've done it enough, because it's so fast, it becomes more of a, like a rhythmic thing to it. You know, there's a, there's a part of the game essentially where it's no longer a surprise. And now it's more like, okay, I've mastered this course. I know what I have to do.
Yeah. This almost feels like at least the trials, the time trial version or mode, it almost feels like a primordial, like the idea isn't really there yet, but everything that inspired it is version of like the trials games, but like trials fusion and all of these games that just like these take physics to their extreme and like how you have to be super precise. But the fact that you have to worry about how you land these things, because in a lot of like these side scrolling racers, you're not really worried about like, oh, am I going to, am I going to land on my nose and then flip over? Or am I going to land and just do a wheelie until I wipe out?
Like this, there's a lot of fine tuning. And I think depth in this game that I think actually did inspire games that came after it. Yeah. And that was one of my, my favorite parts about the, what is it? Mode one or yeah. Mode a mode a was that, yeah, you can kind of use that at least to, to learn like how you're leveling out and stuff without all the distractions of like other, other bikers on the, on the course and everything. But like, I thought that was a really cool aspect of it too, was that you're, you control yourself
in the air to like kind of configure out the physics of like, what's going to happen if I hit this way, what's going to happen if I hit that way. It was a little more in depth than I expected it to be. And so you have to finish third or better. And that's, that's kind of like the, the time that's posted down in the bottom left. And then there's also the first place time. And I don't know, I doubt this matters, but for some reason, first place is always eight seconds better than the third place time.
But generally I found my, I never found myself in, in the theoretical, like new second place, like whatever that would have been. It's either I've just passed. It's either I didn't pass third place. I just passed third place or I passed first place by a good measure.
And I think that like the, the difference in like level one and two isn't that large, but by the time I got to the fifth level and there's kind of like that, um, that bridge thing. Yeah. That bridge thing. It's like, you know, all of a sudden it's like, there's a lot of really crazy ideas in terms of like just shapes and slopes that, that the Excitebike team had that I feel like if this would have ever gotten like a Super Nintendo release where they would have been able to like program in more stuff, they would have went to town on like all of the different, uh, like models you could put in.
But obviously this one was limited just to the number of different sprites that they could use. Uh, so the other thing I want to touch on just for time trial mode specifically, um, is that you rarely really use the wheelie in, in, uh, in, in this game at all, like popping a wheelie. Uh, it, I thought I was using it at first to kind of like get up hills, but that's, that's not like, it's not really what it's for. It's only really for those obstacles. Those like, uh, the hurdles, the hurdles, if you will, like you can get over them if you're popping a wheelie on them.
Uh, but if you, if you do it on the top of a jump, you get, you go up more. Yeah, you get, you go up more, but from what I've, from what I watched at least of like world record runs and stuff like that. And it's really like, I, I recommend anybody who likes Excitebike to check out these world record speed runs because they're just insane. It's to the point where they're just pretty much throttling as fast as they can.
And there is two different speeds, you know, there is a, for your normal speed, but you can go through fat, your fuel faster if you hit the B button instead. And it makes like a different sound too, and just speed you up and you go over and they were pretty much just like completely leaning as far to the right as they could and perfectly like almost like pogo stick bouncing over the, like just the right times. And they were, you know, they were using a little bit of the hang time, but for the most part, this game is really just about like getting over those hills, straightening yourself out to the correct, you know, like obviously if you can get over all the hills, it's preferred.
But I found myself mostly just focusing on like very small tilts of the left and right to get myself back to neutral than I ever was trying to like really lean in or really like pull up. Right. Yeah. I never got to a point where I felt like for straight, like for strategy, I needed to, I needed to lean up or anything like that, but, but because I was just, yeah, so much more focused on like level out, but I could see that it was there. Like I could see that it was like that, that kind of gameplay is possible for probably someone who's a lot better at the game than I am. Right. And I was going to mention that there's only the five tracks, but I think in a little bit we'll talk about why that's not really so much of a problem.
So let's just kind of go right into mode B, which is kind of like the competitive mode, but not really because it's just other people on the course that you don't actually race against them. What did we think of this mode? Did you guys find that it was consistent as to when you bumped into them, when they would fall over as opposed to when you would fall over?
Yeah. So if you hit them from the front, if you hit them from the front, they go. That's what I thought. But then there were a few times where I thought I hit them from the front, but then I went off. But maybe I was just. If they land on you, then you go though. I think that's part of it. Right, right. I want to say that's part of it. I didn't find that part to be too hit or miss. Like I did kind of feel like every time that like I fell down, I was like, okay, like I earned that and it was stupid. And it's, it's really painful.
Yeah. How many times you get knocked over. Oh yeah. In that mode. If you're not like, if you're not being careful, which is like tough because you have that balance. So I do think that this offers something for the good Excite bike player. I do think B is definitely the challenge mode. I don't think it's a different mode. I think it's just basically like, Hey, I got first place in everything in mode A.
Now I want to try something different. Okay. Well, here's this challenge where we throw a bunch of Excite bike racers. I would have really liked to see you actually race them than just a time trial. Yeah. But I, I'm just not sure if there was like a, a programming limit to that of like storing places. Cause, cause there is like, there's racers with you at the start, but then there's also like racers that will be further ahead that must've taken off the course earlier.
I feel like a lot of, uh, racing games, even as far like when I think of these, I even think about, uh, like games on the PlayStation one, um, where they'll all start at the, uh, at the start line with you, but then it'll just be like, they are equal distance, equidistant from each other. And you're just trying to get ahead of them later. I don't, it's like, they don't really have AI.
Um, so you're not really racing these guys. It's just, it's the, it's the illusion of a race. Right. Yeah. Uh, okay, cool. So I, I do think that, um, that this one, it kind of, it, it does, it is a different game. Like it does play very different because there'll be situations where you'll see the, uh, the cool down patch on the ground, whatever that is that makes your turbo go back.
Uh, that you just can't get to because there's too many guys there. And so you kind of have to strategize a little bit differently in this game, um, in that game mode, game mode. But that, I mean, that's about it as far as. And what do you think about that, that, that meter in general, like the fuel? I think it's, I like it. I think that's a really like, that's, that's what makes it in, you know, each, each time trial like intense, you know? Yeah. It's like you're really monitoring.
You have an option, you know? Like, yeah, you, you have that option to go faster with B. But like, for the most part, you want to kind of just be like cruising on a and making sure you hit those, uh, obstacles correctly. And then once you master them, you can kind of go back and see how fast you can push yourself and stuff like that. Or if you fall, it's kind of like a good way to just try and catch up to where you were. Right. So overall difficulty of the game. What are you thinking, Sean? It was pretty hard for me. I didn't get as far into mode B as the rest of y'all.
Um, I had, I had trouble with all of the meters and like how they even were used. Um, gotta read the manual. Gotta read that manual. Sam, the manual Smith laying the smack down. Samuel manual. Sam, Sam manual. Uh, that's, that's pretty good. Yeah. Um, difficulty. Uh, I thought it was a perfect difficulty. I thought that, I mean, I could beat the first level pretty easily after, after I kind of got used to how it was.
And then the second level felt like it was a little bit challenging. The third level is where I started to kind of, you know, having to do it, had to do it a couple more times. And after that, I felt like this is like a challenge. And if I play this more, I did feel like if I play this more, I will get better at this. I didn't feel like it was an unfair challenge. I felt like it was just challenging. And I think that it has a good difficulty curve to it. Joe? Uh, yeah, I, I agree.
Um, I think that it was, it was tough. I, I mean, I had a tough time at first. I mean, the first level was a good like learning experience. And then, uh, I think it was difficult in a good way though. Like it was something that like, I, I didn't feel, uh, like I didn't want to get better at it. Like I wanted to keep playing. Like I felt like it was like a game that you can learn to be good at. Um, the only thing that I, that I will say that I do feel like maybe it's just because I, I needed to get better at it.
But, uh, there was no, it seemed like I had to like run a course a couple of times to like sort of start to remember where, to like memorize where certain obstacles were before I got to them. Definitely too with the refuels. It's like, you have to like really memorize those or else, you know, who knows when the next one will pop up. You know, you might run out of fuel if you're, if you're an, you know, an A and B guy. Yeah. Right.
Uh, so I think the difficulty for this game, it's, it's about right with what Sam said, you know, it's, it's good enough, uh, that at first, you know, you feel kind of good about the game and, and, and your playing ability, but it challenges you the more you play it. And I think this is kind of like, this is the first game on the NES that I feel is well suited for the NES and makes sense why it came to the NES first or the Famicom first before ever going to arcade, because it really does feel like the kind of game that rewards you for owning it, sitting down with it, spending the time to get better at the levels. So this way you can get that faster time. I think the one thing that this game is sorely missing is a two player option.
I think the fact that like you can't race in real time and that you can only race by time is something that like, and it's kind of, if you think about it, it's weird because all the other NES game, not all the other ones will run as that in a second, but most of the NES games that launch titles were there to showcase the system and be like, here's what the system can do.
And you know, the two controllers and the zapper and stuff like that. And it's like, here we have a game that's really just like, you know, like this one for you, this one's for you, like you can play this by, you know, and like, well, I feel like because you're, you could be playing with somebody that doesn't make the same mistakes as you, um, were there split screen games on the NES?
That's a good question. I feel, I feel like that would be a memory issue. Yeah. I feel like that's totally not, like I can't think of an immediate example of a split screen. And I can't think of any way to play this game not split screen. If you're not, right. Well, I think. I haven't really considered that. I think that they're kind of, what, what kind of redeems them from not having a multiplayer is what my favorite part is, is the create your course thing. Cause you kind of can play with your friend as like, I made this course.
Let's talk about design. Now I challenge you. Yeah. Walk us through it, Joe. Well, I mean, when I, when I first, when I noticed what, you know, I saw the design thing, but when I first started playing, I was like, okay, this is what kind of tips the scales to like, now I like this game a lot more. Granted, I enjoyed the racing part and everything. I probably would have had a little less of a hard time if I knew that I could do what Sam said and, and speed up my getting back on the bike. I definitely have to try that again.
And this is something I want to go back and go faster. It's a lot more fulfilling when you can like do something to make your guy go faster. And without that, a wipeout was absolutely like detrimental. Like I, like that would get killed me if I wiped out. Cause he goes like a mile away.
But, uh, but no, the creating the course, I mean, there's a good amount of options of things you can add there and it's a pretty simple, easy way to do it. You, you know, the, it just kind of sides and you add, you add what you want, wherever you want it. The only thing I couldn't figure out is, I don't know if you can go backwards. I don't think you can go backwards and that was kind of a bummer. So you really have to feel good about your decision.
But, uh, but I think it would be pretty fun to sit down with someone and be like, Hey, this is the course I designed. Like how fast can you do it? Yeah. I think, I think we'll definitely plan some kind of Twitch stream for that. I think that'd be fun to, uh, my general thought was like, you know, we designed the course. One person leaves the room, doesn't see the design at all and kind of has to like blind play through it and see how fast they can go.
Uh, Sam, Sean, did you guys design any courses you want to talk about? Yeah, I gave, I gave it a shot. I just did it once just to see like what it was like. I made some, I made some dumb thing with titles for myself and I was like, wow, this is, this can be really hard if I want it to. Mm-hmm. Um, then I made one where I added part of it with just a ton of those little blue strips so you can just hold the B button and go really fast.
And I think that it gives you the opportunity to do some really cool stuff. Like if you just have a ton of blue strips and then a big jump, I mean, that's, that's really cool. Yeah. Do like a huge patch of grass too though. So you gotta make sure you nail that jump. Yeah. Uh, yeah, I really liked this design mode and it's just like, it's, it's unexpected. Yeah. I, I couldn't even believe it was in the game. Yeah. I always imagine. It's a cool thing. Actually, the reason I did not use it was because I thought that it's just going to be terrible because of it, it being on an NES.
I was just focusing on the time trail mode. Right. Yeah. Which again is the biggest part of the game. I think like the clunkiness of like not being able to go back, like kind of having to like think about your course as you're like, like in your head before you're making those like inputs because you got to think about like longterm what you're putting in. And I think like, it's not, it's not a great creator. I think one, I'm more amazed that it even exists.
And two, I'm really impressed that they offer the ability to pretty much make any course you can think of in that, that, that they could have made in the game. And it gives you an appreciation for like kind of the game design of it because like, yeah. And like what Sam was saying, you can make it like really, you can make it like difficult
in a bad way in like a, in like a dumb way. But then it makes you think like, oh, how do you, how do I kind of fix this and make it like kind of cool? And then there's like all these cool ideas. Like I didn't even think of putting like all those blue strips together. Like that's kind of a cool mechanic that. A Mario maker way. Yeah. Like maybe you can make a course, it's just tons of blue strips and obstacles and you have to hold, like you can make a rule for yourself. Like, okay, you have to hold B during this course. You can't use A button, you know? Right. Yeah. And I don't know, I feel like it lends itself to a lot of creativity.
And when I, when I made my, my first course too, there's a bunch of things where I was like, oh, can I put this here? Can I put that here? And then went to play it. I was like, this is a bad course. That got me thinking like, well, what's a good course? And I think that's kind of a cool, a cool. I did the exact same thing. Like, I think like your first course, you just want to be like, oh, let's just put like these big mountains everywhere. Let's do this. Okay. Patch of grass. And, and I think like after that, I, I, I went right to kind of like the, um, what are those like the dirt patches?
Yeah. You know, I kind of went for that as like crisscrosses and really just tried to make a course that like, you really had to just like, you know, be perfect with your timing of like zigzagging. That means that we each have like our own little like personality in the course. Right. Which I think is neat. And if, yeah, it feels fun. And I think like, you know, even if you were a kid, when you came out and you were tasked with like designing a course, like, I feel like it's very hard to make all that a kid wouldn't find fun.
Like, I think even if they throw every hill in very close, you know, directions to each other, uh, approximations to each other, there's still something there. You know, there's still, it's a challenge. It's something interesting. So I think that's like a whole. You're still competing with your friends for time. It's a whole new form of replayability that the other three games.
And a form of expression that these, that the other games don't really have. Yeah. There was an e-reader version and that included the ability to save your courses. So that was kind of cool to think about like having the e-reader version. Unfortunately, you had to swipe the cards each time you wanted to play, but you could save your course, have it on the go on the Game Boy Advance and like kind of like push it onto
your friends. That seems like a really cool like revival thing for this. I do think though that in spite of that, I mean, the courses that it was all, every piece of terrain has a letter to, you know, a letter designation, you know? Um, and so if you just get a piece of paper and you mark down like your course in letter form, right. Or you say like, all right, this, this, then hit a button.
It's almost like your old password. Yeah. And then you can just memorize that. And I feel like after a while, if you have your course that you want to go, if you're a around NES and you want to bring your course on house, you can just bring your little piece of paper and say, this is, this is my course. You know, I think there's ways around it, which is basically what they do for passwords in like older games, you know, to continue and save and save positions. And there was a, um, another, this is another 3ds classic, uh, that did get like a 3d version for a faux 3d, I guess.
Uh, and so there's, there's that option too. And it was on NES remix. Uh, but I think what, you know, similar to other NES remix games, what it's missing there is that the challenges are super short, you know, they, they, they're taking an already like kind of short game and just kind of like asking you to do something even simpler as a task within it. And I just feel like, you know, it would just be so much more fun to just say, Hey, like, you know, you know, be taught.
Because like this game is, it's a game that you have to get comfortable with and think this, I actually had never heard of the NES remix. Uh, yeah. And just the, I think thrown into this. Yeah. Like I get that. Like, um, with, with baseball, like, yeah, I think that's that half an inning is all that baseball needs, but I think you need more than what you just described for Excite. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, cool. All right. So now let's get into the essential games list.
All right. It's time for essential games list. And, uh, for those of you that don't know, this is kind of like our hall of fame for the NES, only not in the old school way of looking at these great NES games. Instead, we're looking at them in a modern view. And do they still, uh, should they still be essential? Uh, think about it. You have a PS4 and then there's switch, uh, PC, Xbox one, Neo Geo. Yeah. Neo Geo. All these great systems. Tamagotchi. All these great systems.
And yeah, you're looking at these NES games. You're like, Oh, I wonder like, do I really need to play that game now? Like my backlog is so big. Should I really add these NES games to them? And we're kind of here to say like definitively, is this game worth your time when you could be playing like Bloodborne? You know, it's like, let's, let's find out. So let's just dive right into it. You do need, uh, since it's four of us, we do need at least two votes into the hall, uh, into the essential games list here. So, uh, Sean, kick us off. I'm going to go ahead and say no.
I feel like you guys, uh, got more comfortable with it. You, you, you went down into the different modes. You built tracks. I really only stuck around in the time trial mode. Wasn't really that good at it. Um, so I don't think I, with my experience, I can put it in our best of.
Okay. All right. Sam? Uh, I'm going to say yes. I think that this, of the games that we played, and not saying that just because it's better than the other games we played means it's a yes. But of the games that we played, this was the only one where I wasn't, I wasn't saying, all right, how much longer do I have to play this game before I feel like I have an opinion of it? I just wanted to play this game when I started playing it and I'm going to play more of it. And then I realized it was getting late and I had to stop, you know?
Uh, which I think is, uh, yeah, that's a good verdict. Yeah. And the fact that you can build a course in a racing game, it was something I've, that's something I've always wanted in a racing game. And maybe I just haven't played the right ones. And I think if you're going to play an NES, like this game is one that you should play. All right, Joe, do we have our first game?
Um, all right. Well, I was really, really on the fence about this, but I think that after, I think that without the creation, I don't know if you guys can tell, I really like the creation aspect of it, but I think without the creation, I would probably say no. But with the creation, I, I kind of think that it's, it's, it's such a very simple way to kind of get people playing a game that, you know, there's games now, we're maker and stuff, but like, this is like so simple where you just get like the, you just kind of get the basics of like game design. And I think that's, that's a really cool thing.
Despite what you guys are saying, which I agree with that, like you kind of spend a little bit of time with it. You can kind of pick this up and play it and decide if you want to do it. You know, it's not, it's not Final Fantasy or Legend of Zelda where like, if you're going to play this, you need to commit all this time to it. Like you kind of just pick this up, play it in burst, play it with your friends.
I think, you know, to Sean's point, it's like, you can kind of figure out pretty fast if you want to continue to play this game. So I think I'm going to give it a yes, a very close to, to note. I need a definitive yes. I need, it's a yes. It's just, I'm just saying it just barely made it to yes. Wow. What do you, what do you think? Yeah, we saw it. So let's see.
Will I push it over the, it would actually be an interesting feature to it. Maybe we should have two tiers of like. Well, no, I think it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like we should have like two people was like a yes, but then three is like a, like a resounding yes. And so I kind of thought about this and, and I think that at the end of the day, what I realized is I, I did kind of have a launch game bias here.
I did feel like this is an incredibly impressive launch game that really like caught my interest said, Hey, this is actually like a lot different. This feels more Nintendo. It feels more console. It, you know, the designer thing is like, I can't even think of other games at the time that would let you make your own levels. You know, like that's, that's kind of crazy. But if we're, if we're saying essential NES game, just, I just don't have it in me that
this Excite Byte game offers something that you, that you must experience in 2018. I, I still feel like because of the way that the design, the design levels are, you know, like you can't go backwards. You can't save them. You know, you have to kind of have the course in mind beforehand. And because there's only five tracks in the time trial and there isn't really the two player option. I don't think that this makes my essential games list. See, this is interesting because when we went around with first impressions, you said, you know, I was sort of on, I'm sorry. I pointed at Joe sort of on the fence.
But you did have some positive to say about it. Right. And then Mike says, this is a great game. You're the one that puts it on the list. It is interesting. Mike's the one that actually. Well, like I said, without the design, the design mode, I wouldn't put it on the list. But I don't know. I just really liked the design mode. And it's also the fact that I don't, I guess I don't know enough about racing games to know of another racing game that I think it is. I don't think that like, again, the essential games list doesn't require us to play all the seven plus games before we can decide which ones are.
Because it's very possible that we'll come upon one later where it's like, oh, this is a better one. But right now, from what I've played, from my experiences, this is like, yeah, this is, it's really cool that you could create those. I don't want anybody to have essential game, you know, doubt in their system because we challenged you guys. Like, you guys have decided that this is essential. Trust me, there's doubt. There's doubt before. I'm like, do I put this on essential? But I think I stand by it.
I stand by it. I had fun. I think, I think also something that might be interesting, and this is just kind of an aside, is if we had our personal lists up on the site as well. Like what we voted yes to and what we voted no to. Yeah, there's a discussion for that. Yeah. He just shut you down.
Yeah. I did not. I know. Okay. And that's all the time we have for this episode of Nostalgia. Join us next time for golf. And be sure to play it yourself if you can. For more Nostalgia, please subscribe to our podcast wherever you listen. And be sure to check out NostalgiaCast.com. That's N-E-S-T-A-L-G-I-A-Cast.com. On the website, you'll find links to the show and show notes, as well as our other platforms, such as Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. Thank you so much for your support of Nostalgia. We thank you for spending time with us. I'm Michael Esposito, and you can find me on Twitter at Esposito Film, and I'll talk to you soon. It's the post show. Welcome to the post show.
Welcome. This is going to be the post show for the day. The post show. I would ask you please to not whisper into the microphone. Some of our listeners might be super sensitive.
I was kind of thinking, you know, we want to just make it about like motocross since we probably have no freaking experience on that. I have no opinion on motocross. So let's talk maybe about Hot Wheels. That's something that's just as crazy as like Excitebike, right? Sure. Hot Wheels was like a big thing. Hot Wheels had a design mode. Wait, you can design your course. Which Hot Wheels is that?
All of them. You mean like the physical Hot Wheels? Yeah. The actual tracks. Because they had games too. That's true. Yeah. And we're only talking about the physical. We're not talking about the games. I don't want to hear you talking about Hot Wheels on the N64. Dude, it's so good. Wait, wait, wait. Well, I want to talk about Hot Wheels on PC. What Hot Wheels on PC? Which one are you talking about? The whole game was just an FMV that you controlled like one sprite on.
And like when you crash into something, the video stopped. That come in like a cereal box? Yeah. Yeah? Yeah, I think so. No, come on. I think it came in like a cereal box. I just made that up because that's a thing too. We got to do a whole nother post show on cereal box games. Oh, yeah. This could be the top show on cereal box games. I mean, I had a Pokemon cereal box game. It was terrible. But there was a creative track with that too. Pokemon? There was a what? There was a creative track. Oh, with the one you were talking about? Yeah. How did that work? It was just in an empty basement basically so that it didn't have to change the background at all.
And it just had a bunch of like five to six second clips of either like a... I forget what the game's actually called. It doesn't matter, but how bad do those FMVs look? Oh, it's like 144p. Yeah, like dithering up the max to make it look like something. It looks like it was recorded at like... I don't know what to say. It was bad. Okay.
It was bad. What other... As far as Hot Wheels go, physical Hot Wheels. Yeah. When I was a kid, I had this kit that was the Volcano Blowout kit. I remember that. Wow, you are like my envy right now. It was sick, let me tell you. It was just... I mean, the thing is like it also, you know, it does the track and you're like, wow, this is so cool. And then you just kind of stare at it for a little bit and you like throw some more cars in there. And then like, you know, that's about it. That's all you can really get from it. But it was really cool.
My parents never bought me any of the Hot Wheels tracks. But we had like a green bin full of Hot Wheels. Yeah. I had a similar... I had just like so many Hot Wheels, but like all you could do was just kind of like push them around the carpet. Yeah. I had... I wanted a track. I think I had like a knockoff track, but I never used it. I always just like... Did they fit? You guys just weren't trying hard enough. You can make a track.
I had cars that were... Yeah. Slow your roll there. You can get... Yeah. You don't know how hard I tried. You can get like pieces of paper and put them on. I'm saying I didn't have an official Hot Wheels track, but I used them. But I don't think half of them were actual Hot Wheels. I mean, some of them were, but a lot of them were just toy cars. I had three tracks and I was able to, you know, kind of mix and match to mess, like to make some cool stuff.
And one of them was, you know how they have like the Hot Wheels thing is like there's two little wheels that spin really fast that when your car goes in them, it shoots out. You know what I'm talking about? There was one that didn't have that. Instead, your car has a motor inside of it and you press it up against this box and it charges the car's motor and then it just starts turning the wheels on the car immediately.
So you just hold it down and charge it and the wheels are going and they're going and you just let it go on the track. And that thing was like the coolest one. So just like a wind up car? Like a wind up car, but it had a battery inside that would last for like, I don't know, like 15 seconds or something, you know, and then it would slowly just wear down. But it had like loopty loops that you could do with no little two wheel things.
And I don't know. That was just. That's cool. It was cool. Something I want to talk about. I just want to bring it up because I didn't during the show and I just feel like it's really cool too. Yeah. The, um, in Japan, the Super Nintendo got this thing called the Satellaview, which was like, you could download, um, you can load games essentially from the internet to your Super Nintendo. But you needed this Satellaview thing and like you needed a package and everything like that. Anyway, they released a version of Excitebike on the Super Nintendo, the only through the Satellaview where it was Excitebike, but with like Mario, Luigi and Peach and like Toad as characters. Whoa. And like.
That was cheated. Early beginnings of how they have to put their, the likeness of all their characters in every game. Yeah. Well, actually, funny you should say that, John, uh, cause this is the post show. So we could probably just start talking about golf right now. Uh, in golf, you'll notice, um, Mario does make an appearance. Oh, great. And he will in almost every day.
Was Mario a thing before golf? Like, but I mean, was Mario brothers? Yeah. Oh, Mario brothers was 1980. What was, what was Mario brothers on? What? It was, but also arcade, but, but golf was arcade first. Okay. So it goes, the order goes, Donkey Kong, Mario brothers, Super Mario brothers. It doesn't go, Donkey Kong, Mario brothers golf.
Well, I mean, right. But that's what I'm saying. Yeah. I know, but we're doing golf. It's just alphabetical. Like it's golf. And I thought it was chronological golf and Super Mario brothers came out on the same day. They're long. Oh, they did. Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. Going in alphabetical order. Okay. That makes sense then. I thought it was like Mario, Super Mario brothers came out after and it's like, oh, well, he was so big in golf. Everyone loved it. Yeah. It's like, wow. It's such a big deal in golf. That's where he got his start. And they named Mario there. No, but I just want to clarify real quick.
That's more of like a joke than anything because I'm saying Mario makes an appearance, but it's an appearance on the box art of the NES cover for golf. Yeah. And it's, it's just this like that. Like you could. Mike is showing a picture of the box set right now. Right. It's go look it up. We'll, we'll, we'll edit it into the YouTube version. Yeah. I think that's Mario. I think that's just the guy. Let me see. That's Mario from the movie. You guys are saying it wrong. I think that's Mario. Who played Mario in the movie? I have no idea. Well, you know, we're getting another one of those. What's that? A Super Mario Brothers movie. I mean, a lot of action one? A lot of action one?
An animated movie. Not interested. That I think DreamWorks is doing. Really? Yeah. I mean, there's. I made that up. It's not DreamWorks. It's some shitty company, actually. I mean, there's a, there's a plethora of great video game movies out there. Yeah. And that's, that is the first of many lies. Well, yeah. Well, you know what? Alone in the Dark. Do, the Tomb Raider. I almost called it Doom Raider. And that's probably what it's going to be.
The Tomb Raider movie hasn't come out yet at the time of this recording. And that looks awful. Yeah. It looks like they try to do kind of shot for shot what happens in the Tomb Raider game, which I don't. Yeah. Anyway, this was a great post show about Hot Wheels. I feel like we got a lot accomplished. Yes. I'm tired. It's like 11, 12. Yeah. We're past your bedtime. It is 11, 12. Let's get out of here. If it's past your bedtime, go to bed. If it's not past your bedtime, stay up. Sam, would you like to do the honorary log in to your computer? Yeah, you log in to your computer. Yeah, you got it. A bunch of things.
People are going to figure out what my password is. By the sound. How about this? I'll just like. Yeah, yeah. Fake clicks, too. You can actually enter it. Yeah? Wow. Fake clicking. That's impressive. Okay. Did you stop it? Yeah. It's done. Did you get that? Yeah.
