One of the classic NES games, Excitebike recently just got a remake on WiiWare which was released on Nov. 9th (& it was only announced 2 weeks before it's released!), which got me excited. Is it memorable like it's NES counterpart, or should you skip it?

Excitebike: World Rally

Genre: Racing

Price: 1,000 Wii Points ($10)

Platform: WiiWare

Excitebike: World Rally is basically a remake of the old NES game, keeping true to it's roots. The controls are the same (just hold the Wiimote on it's side & play it NES-style) & the goal is simple: just beat the time (or the B-rank time) to go to the next track. Complete all 4 to go to the next cup (think Mario Kart). There's 4 cups w/ 4 tracks each, so it'll hardly take you any time to go through it, but since you can unlock extra colors by getting S-ranks on all the tracks for that cup (2 colors for each cup, plus a special one for getting S-ranks on all 4 cups).

Modes: The good ol' Track Editor is back, & this time, you can send & receive custom made tracks online (like Super Smash Bros. Brawl's stage editor). Speaking of online, you can go online & race against other people. Sadly, due to limitations, I can't test this out (I have to use a LAN adapter to connect to the internet & it's not all that fast, plus I have to haul my 21" TV out, which isn't fun. You can also unlock even more colors/designs online by earning points by racing online against anyone or your friends (hey, I might get online if enough people convince me).

Cons: Like I said, there's only 16 tracks, & they're all short (only 2 laps & all should take under 2 minutes to complete the race). The alt. colors are OK, but don't feel like a great reward for that hard work getting the S-ranks, & that special design is just basically the black w/ a skull on it & some white strips, but you can hardly see them since your rider covers the design, not to mention you're too far away to see it, so it kind of feels pointless. There's also multiple "angles" you can view the race from, but they're awkward due to the controls being like the NES, so you'll want to stick w/ the classic angle, which makes the other angles feel useless. Also, shaking the Wiimote up & down after you crash IS NOT FUN & GETS ANNOYING.

Recommendation: Ask yourself this: "Do I like Excitebike on the NES? Do I like classic-style racing games?" If you do, then I'd recommend it. You'll have fun enjoying Nintendo remaking another classic game & playing against people online. If not, well, then this isn't for you.

Alright, Bit.Trip Void gets released on Nov. 23rd, so I'll download that & review it about a week after. I'll review the Japanese PS2 game I imported (it came on the 27th, a WEEK AFTER I was expecting) sometime later, as I've got everything unlocked & ready to give my review, plus I might review 2/3 DS games I've imported.

I finally got those Miles Edgeworth Tokyo Game Show posters that I won in the mail today, so here's some pictures (along w/ another prize I won in the past) of them.

Here they are just opened:

& after 10-ish minutes later of finding 16 push-pins, on my wall.

I also want to share with you something I "won" 2 months ago on Twitter from Capcom. Their Dark Void Twitter account was doing a special contest where you could win one of those neat E3 t-shirts. Well, I entered & a few days after it ended, I asked them if they had a list of the winners. They did, but it turned out, THEY HAD AN EXTRA & WOULD ME MORE THAN GLAD TO SEND IT TO ME. Yup, I won an extra shirt that they had from the contest. Sadly, it's only a Large (they didn't have XL), but it's still neat having something that only 300 were ever made. I even got a paper w/ 3 signatures of people who worked on the game!

That's it for this post. My Japanese PS2 game should be shipping soon (i.e 10/14 or 10/15), so I'll do a little review of that, plus I'm getting the Mario Hat from Club Nintendo (it went to preparing order. If any of you care, I'll post it) & I'll be reviewing Bit.Trip Void once that gets added to WiiWare.