Monster Games has pretty much taken up the mantle now as developer of all things Excite-related. After creating the excellent launch-title arcade racer, Excitetruck – the first game to branch the Excite series out of bikes – and following up with the goofy but fairly good Excitebots, the developer has returned to the roots of the series with a pseudo-3D update to the original
NES title.
World Rally for the
WiiWare (1,000 Wii Points) is essentially an expansion of the Excite 3D mode from 2000’s
Excitebike 64. If anyone recalls, the Nintendo 64 title (developed by Left Field) featured a perfectly emulated version of the
NES title as well as a special one-track sampling of the
NES racer redone in full 3D graphics, but with an optional ¾ view ala Super Mario RPG or Sonic 3D Blast. The short-but-sweet “remake,” if you will, was a great deal of fun and the first instance of
Excitebike being remade without altering the core 4-lane straightaway racetrack design.
The developer seems to have taken some inspiration from the Excite 3D mode because its recent
WiiWare title plays essentially the same – although with much more content and more refined controls.
Excitebike World Rally copies the simple formula pioneered by the
NES title – four dirt bike riders race from left to right on a straight track loaded with insane amounts of varying jumps and obstacles while trashing each other along the way – and expands upon it not only with fully 3D levels, backgrounds and bikes (although in essentially a 2D presentation), but with gameplay updates from both
Excitebike 64 and Excitetruck.
Like the original title, World Rally’s challenge is to speedily navigate the assortment of jumps and ramps by landing both wheels flat on the terra firma. You’ll have a standard gas button (2 on the Wii remote) and the returning turbo throttle feature (1 on the Wii remote), but if you use your turbo throttle too much your bike will overheat and you’ll fall behind as your bike lags.
There is of course more than one way to lower your bike’s constantly increasing temperature gauge (which rises as a result of turbo throttle usage). Just as in the original title, driving over arrow markers on the race track will reduce your bike’s temperature, and clipping another rider’s front tire with your rear tire will not only topple him, but reduce your temperature as well (as it first did in
Excitebike 64).
Additionally, like Monster’s first Excite game, Excitetruck, you earn small turbo boosts each time you pull off a smooth landing. This means that skilled racers must learn to consistently earn smooth-landing boosts throughout the race to increase momentum and maintain the lead position. And like Excitetruck, you’ll be able to pick up carefully placed tokens along the track that instantly modify the layout, popping up a ramp where none existed before.
The controls themselves are generally unchanged from their original setup, though there are two modes to choose from. The standard setup uses the Wii remote’s tilt sensors to aim the pitch of the bike, but it’s slightly confusing since you’ll still have to change lanes with the D-pad. The classic setup simply uses the D-pad alone for steering and changing pitch, just like the original
NES title. Motion controls have been thrown in as well. When your bike topples over or overheats you’ll be able to recover quicker by shaking the remote.
After racing extensively with both setups, I can conclusively state that the standard, tilt-sensing setup is by far superior. The primary reason is that it’s easier to consistently make smooth landings by keeping the Wii remote in a horizontal position. If the classic setup allowed the bike’s angle to revert to a perfectly horizontal pitch each time you stopped pressing the D-pad, this might have been a different story. But as it is, tilt controls are more consistent and don’t require fighting or over-correction like full D-pad controls.
The content of the game is essentially contained in the single-player World Tour mode. There are four various cups to compete in (Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum), and each cup has four different tracks based upon a city or country such as Kyoto or Mexico. The tracks themselves are well-designed and feature beautifully detailed backgrounds such as a desert landscape with Egyptian-style pyramids or a tropical theme filled with palm trees and an ocean view.
The music is also highly varied and sometimes matches each track’s regional theme. While the game updates the classic title screen music and a few other sounds, it quickly veers off on its own musical direction ranging from mediocre to good.
Depending on how fast you race through each track you’ll earn a rating pulled straight from Excitetruck – “S” being the best rating – but you’ll need at least a “B” rating to progress to the next cup. Earning all “S” ratings will unlock the multiple color schemes for you bike, but as far as we could tell, it didn’t seem to unlock any sort of special mirror or reverse modes.
World Rally also features a much-welcomed online multiplayer mode where up to four players can connect via
Wi-Fi and race any of the World Tour mode’s tracks – so long as you’ve unlocked them already.
To ensure that players actually have a reason to race online (aside from, you know, fun), Monster has implemented a system that awards points based upon your placement at the end of each race. Save up enough points and you’ll unlock special color schemes for your bike separate from the ones unlocked in World Tour mode. And to give players a reason to race in both public matches and registered friend matches, there are color schemes that can only be unlocked with public match points and friend match points. So if you want to unlock every color scheme, you should start exchanging friend codes and scheduling matches.
The track editor also makes a largely unchanged return. Like before, you’ll be able to create your own custom track filled with whatever ramps and obstacles you like, and you can save up to eight different tracks. Unfortunately, the potentially greatest feature of this title – the ability to share custom-made tracks with others – is severely limited by friend codes. You’ll only be able to share your creations with registered friends, which is a pity.
Overall, you can’t go wrong with World Rally if you’re a classic
Excitebike fan. It’s a shame that the unlockables are a little lackluster and that track editor wasn’t better implemented, but there’s a decent amount of content for the $10 price tag and the online multiplayer adds a wealth of replayability. If you’re new to the
NES game, but enjoy arcade-style racing and creating your own tracks, World Rally is highly recommended.
8.4/10
.