Excitebike is a motocross racing game viewed from the side. Your "Excitebike" has two speeds, standard acceleration, and turbo - however using the latter for long periods of time causes the engine to overheat, and you have to pull over and wait for it to cool. Special arrow markers on the track can return your engine to standard temperature.
When you drive over a jump, you have to angle your bike on the way back down so you are level with the ground you are coming down on, which can get tricky for multiple jumps. At the very top of a jump you can accelerate and pull back to gain a quick turbo boost.
Game Modes
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Game A
Try and complete laps of each course, and beating the top three times (the third- and first place times are displayed on screen). Place third or above to move on to the next track.
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Game B
This is the same as Game A, only this time you are not alone. Other Excitebikers ride around the circuit, getting in the way and knocking you off your bike. If you clip their bikes in just the right place you can knock them over without being knocked out yourself.
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Design Mode
In this mode you can build and save your own circuits. All of the game obstacles are available to choose from, and you can even choose the number of laps (up to 9). In Japan you could save the tracks to the Famicom tape deck, but the US "NES Memory Pak" was never released, so this option doesn't work.
