Top 128: 6/16 - Bracket Gold & Silver

[The Shoemaker]

I would've given Skyrim a vote if it wasn't a buggy mess on the PS3. It bugged me out of the Companions questline, and for that, I will never forgive it!

But, the cheese wheels...

[Kong Wen]

So far, no one has uttered a single word in this thread about Excitebike. But it's beating Skyrim with 7 votes. Would anyone like to chime in with some thoughts on what makes Excitebike one of the best games ever?

[Niahak]

Excitebike is one of the games whose appeal I've never really understood. It was fun enough, but only entertaining for a little while. I'll concede the music is catchy...

I'd like to hear what others like about it for sure.

[The Shoemaker]

So far, no one has uttered a single word in this thread about Excitebike. But it's beating Skyrim with 7 votes. Would anyone like to chime in with some thoughts on what makes Excitebike one of the best games ever?

That's a valid question. For me, it was just an easy check off for a game I had fun with when I was younger. The game does not hold up today outside of couple minute play sessions.

It's my nostalgi-vote

[Humphries90]

So far, no one has uttered a single word in this thread about Excitebike. But it's beating Skyrim with 7 votes. Would anyone like to chime in with some thoughts on what makes Excitebike one of the best games ever?

Must have been from nostalgia. The first time I played it was the 3DS port. Let's just say it's a good job it was free...

[TheGreatNads]

Well I like Excitebike still just for the record. I say this more for posterity than to try to convince anyone, but I can try to say something about what I like about Excitebike(even though there are plenty of games that have been in this competition I did not say anything about which are more deserving, like Battle Garegga which I started to make a long post about but decided against it).

I would say that saying racing games in general with a lot of vertical oriented play are fun. More specifically, in Excitebike and other games I like having to control your vehicle's momentum as you go into the air from various ramps and other things(objects which can be looked at as useful tools for helping you get from A to B faster, or can also be looked at as obstacles, depending on how you go about completing the track) so that say the front of your vehicle doesn't hit the ground and cause the vehicle to collapse is fun. This stuff can be pretty dynamic, and frankly I'm not shy about comparing it to for example's Mario's use of momentum and physics with the run and how Mario doesn't come to a complete stop right away if you stop running(I don't expect many people are going to disagree that Mario's controls and use of physics are a big deal).

Some 3D games(Jet Moto for example) do what I described in the previous paragraph as well and in a more complicated fashion, but there is something satisfying about Excitebike's simplistic, intuitive controls for this type of game. Also the fact that most of the challenge is focused on things that go on in the field of play makes Excitebike more fun in a pick up and play way to me. I don't want to exaggerate here, but I think it's somewhat true that in some other racing games with a lot of ramps, other drivers, lots of in-air stuff, etc. that simply staying on the track can be a big part of the challenge. And sometimes this slows down the speed of the game too much. In Excitebike it's slightly different, as more often going off track is actually a punishment for losing control of your vehicle in some other way.

The fact that Excitebike has a very intuitive and quick level editor is also a big point in its favor, and a big point against every racing game that lacks this.

There is nothing that I described above that is totally unique to Excitebike, and if anyone wants to name racing games(especially, though not exclusively, 2D racing games) that they think do everything I described so much better than Excitebike, I would be interested. But from my experience, it's not clear to me that there are tons of games that have superseded Excitebike in all the respects I have described. So I think Excitebike is still worth playing in a day where most racing games are boring and too realistic or too cinematic. If people also want to list a bunch of flaws with the game I would also be interested, because I don't think of the game that way.

I also suspect I'm not totally alone here in thinking that Excitebike is still a good game. I did not vote for it simply because of the great competition. It's certainly better designed than a lot of the crap people have voted for in other polls, like for example Rockstar games, which have appalling control schemes. I haven't said enough negative things about games I dislike lately, so I'm just going to bold the provocative bit in the hopes that more people see what I said.

[Kong Wen]

Pokémon Gold & Silver Versions, Mega Man 2, and R-Type have secured places in the Top 64.

A tie-breaker between The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Excitebike will be posted soon.