Earlier this week, Nintendo revealed a new game for WiiWare via the Nintendo Channel’s “Nintendo Week” show, Excitebike: World Rally. And while details were scarce with the promise of more to come before the game’s November 9th release, IGN has gotten their hands on a copy and have brought several new details to the fore.
First things first, the developer is indeed Monster Games, who also developed the Wii launch title Excite Truck and its follow-up, this year’s Excitebots: Trick Racing. Excitebike: World Rally marks a return to the classic style of gameplay which made Excitebike a near-household name among NES gamers in the 80’s and creating something of a gaming legacy.
The new game takes a sort of New Super Mario Bros. approach to revival, utilizing 2D gameplay with 3D graphics which run at a cool 60 frames per second. IGN recaps what the original Excitebike was, and adds that World Rally is nearly identical in design, but with new elements added “to tighten up and intensify the action-based racing.”
Whereas before you could knock your opponents off their bikes by bringing your rear tire into their front tire, you can now also bound over slower racers by performing a wheelie before you run into them. In addition, the rear-tire ramming from the original can now cool down your engine, an important part of keeping the bike’s throttle at maximum efficiency.
As is characteristic of Monster’s Excite games, World Rally has courses set across the globe, just as the title implies. The United States, Canada, Japan, Mexico, and England are among the tracks available, though it should be noted that the changes are more aesthetic than anything, merely affecting the backdrop of each track.
“The structure is very similar to what Monster Games did in Excitebots and Excitetruck before it,” IGN notes. “There are multiple circuits, and you earn a rank based on how you perform in a specific course: earn an A or B rank and you’ll move on, but hit the C rank and you’ll have to try again.” In addition, just as in the other Monster-Excite games, there is an S-rank to shoot for, and “you can bet that the effect an S rank has in the other games will apply to Excitebike…”
We heard before about the option of switching from classic NES-style Wii Remote controls to something more motion-based, but it was unclear what that entailed. IGN notes that motion controls simply allow you to tilt the controller to lean forward and backward, rather than using left and right on the D-pad. The game’s records will also make note of the control scheme used when a record time is achieved.
With the game now in 3D, the camera can be adjusted on the fly with the A button to a different angle, allowing a further view of the course. Unfortunately, the controls don’t change with it. So while pressing left and right might seem more natural to change lanes, the controls will remain mapped to up and down on the pad. IGN notes they had a harder time with this angle, and found it to be gimmicky, though you can also switch the angles during replays.
As Nintendo Week noted, the Track Editor returns, and seems to work just as it did before. Only now, you can test the track as you go, and then share the finished creations online through WiiConnect-24.
IGN gives the game praise, though it notes that if you’re looking for something new and different from the original, this may disappoint. “But for fans of Excitebike, it’s a way to relive what made the original game so much fun in an updated package.”
