Excitebike

The game starts with a qualifying race, where the player is the only bike on the track. The player must navigate over hills, jumps, hay bails, and other obstacles in a set amount of time to qualify for the next race. The course scrolls right to left and the view is from a slightly elevated angle to allow for 3-D.

The player moves up and down left to right on the track with the joystick. Moving the stick left is like pulling up on the handlebars, producing a wheelie. Moving the stick right or left in the air will change the attitude of the bike, controlling what angle it will be at during landing. Ideally, this should match the angle of the ground during landing.

Button B controls turbo. The engine will overheat if this is kept on too long. At this time, the player should use normal acceleration with button A. There are arrows on the track that will cool off the engine when the player runs over them.

If the player qualifies, the next race will be the same track with competitors. If the player places in the top five, the next race will be a qualifier on another track and so on.

Landing wrong, too big of a wheelie, running over a hay bail while not in a wheelie, or colliding with a competitor will cause a crash. There is no limit to the number of crashes, but it costs time. Overheating the engine will also just cost time. The game is over when the player fails to qualify.

How to obtain "Excitebike" mode. While racing you can cause the other bikes to crash by cutting in front of them, using your back tire to knock into their front in order to send them tumbling. If you can cause 5 bikes to crash without crashing in any way yourself, you will be rewarded with the "Excitebike". The color or you motorcycle will change and you can use the turbo button without fear of overheating. If you crash the Excitebike, you lose it and return to your normal bike.

The controls of Vs. System games allow for two players on a Unisystem and four on a Dualsystem. Unfortunately, Nintendo chose not to make use of this on Excitebike since only one player may play at a time.

The game uses the standard generic Vs. artwork.

All Vs. games can be converted by swapping the ROMs, daughterboards, or other custom chips on the board. The Vs. Dualsystem architecture allows two games, serving two separate monitors, to be played from the same board.