Ctrl+F for “Descenders” came up empty. I think that’s the author’s issue.
Just tried this out recently. It’s good fun. I do wish it explained itself a little better at the start - I had no idea that it was essentially a roguelite for about the first hour I played - but it gets that feeling of momentum at the edge of wiping out just right
Now that is a name I have not heard in a long time.
I saw something within the past year or so that looked like a new version of Paperboy and I got excited but then it turned out it wasn’t and I was disappointed.
Excitebike, too! The built-in level editor was really amazing.
I was so excited when this came out on Wii! I need to set my Wii up again play it more.
I never had an NES as a kid, but my best friend did, and we spent hours playing excite bike. It was such a great game.
I was cleaning out my garage a few weeks ago and came across my old Commodore 64 Paperboy floppy.
Uhhhh Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX is/was a thing you know?
Don’t forget BMX XXX!
Downhill Domination
came here to say just this
that soundtrack slaaaaaaappped
Trials, Paperboy, Excite Bike, Super Hang On, No Second Prize, Manx TT Super bike, Radikal Bikers, Bikes Of TRON…
The recent situation is like jets where the more arcady takes mostly only exist in open world and mass multiplayer games.
look i’m not a ICE apologist or antyhing (these apply to EVs as well) but it’s not hard to figure out why car games are more popular. Also I’m not saying these are universal rules, i’m sure some disagree. But I think it’s safe to say these apply to most in the gamer market.
-
more power and speed = more fun.
-
Games are as close as most people will come to driving an expensive car like a BMW, let alone a Ferrari, or even actual racing cars.
-
Even if you argue people are just not culturally conditioned to aesthetically enjoy bicycles, could you even really appreciate them in the same way in a video game? you’d barely see them.
-
Cars are much more complex machines and that leads to each having a more unique character than bicycles, and that allows a greater variety of gameplay. For example, mid/front engine, ICE/EV, NA/turbo/super, FWD/RWD/AWD, etc. And usually in games there’s a progression from lower performance cars to higher performance cars.
Instead of leveling up your vehicle, you level up the infrastructure as you progress the game. By the end, you’re just taking the public transit system to the finish line.
Doesn’t this touch on the premise of Death Stranding?
There’s the kernel of a pretty good 3 minute YouTube skit in here.
-
Road Redemption (motorcycle combat game)
7 Days to Die (zombie scavenging survival craft with mostly 2-wheeled vehicles)
Don’t forget Days Gone. Purely a motorcycle during a zombie apocalypse. Sooooo damn good!
beat me to it. That one was a lot of fun. It’s almost halloween, I should play it again.
Well, bikes are usually a lot slower…
There is Paperboy for the NES. I have that game amd it still very playable. But they are right not many of those types of games.
Walking is even slower, but there’s no lack of walking games.
I was referring mostly to the “exciting” part of the title.
Road cycling is a rich persons sport, gaming is circuses for us poors.
No one wants to play ‘tour de riche’
A /decent/ Downhill game could be good (Descenders wasn’t it., super wide mariokart-esque tracks - give me some goat tracks that need berms on the corners)
Am I a joke to you!?
Generation Zero has bicycles as the main “silent” vehicle to get around, so you don’t alert the machines.
Parcel Corps (I played the demo a while back, I don’t know if it’s fully released) is about bicycle couriers, in a cool vibrant city. It kinda reminds me of JSRF in a couple ways, as you ride around on your bike and do all sorts of cool tricks, and there’s a funky soundtrack (from what I remember).
Eta: holy shit I forgot about, imo, the GOAT of bike gameplay: Bully. I remember trying so hard to get all the way through Shop class to get one of the best bikes in the game, and doing the paperboy side quest as much as I could just to experience that feeling, and earn tons of money. I ended up getting really good at it too.
How has no one mentioned Happy Wheels yet?
Also, Riders Republic is a thing that people slept on.
Trials Evolution would like a word
We have Road Rash. What more could you want?
The excitement of F1 racing is unattainable to most people, which is why it makes sense as a game, but bikes are pretty tame. However, one thing that makes bikes interesting is their smallness, ease and simplicity. The Yakuza series has started picking up on giving protagonists such small vehicles, including a skateboard and a segway, and they make much more sense within those worlds than full vehicles.
I feel like this could be envisioned as part of a larger open-world game, not as the vehicle itself as a means to fun. Something like: You have an open world game, and it has cars, and they are faster than your bike. But they are far more nimble, can go in tighter areas, and can be stored in larger vehicles used to get around. So, something like picking the Gravity Gun in Half-Life 2, they’re a tool that’s fantastic for making use of the environment for better results, but not a “first-order strategy for movement”. This is even sometimes how they work out in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
Yeah bikes were really useless in GTA V because even the narrowest alleyway could be driven down. Hopefully they have some narrow alleyways that you might be able to skip down to avoid the police.
I don’t know, Tour de France (1983) on Vectrex looks nice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MnEOLIaBl0Lots of dead birds/banana peels/whatever on the ground. The Tour de France is an internationally televised event! Do some track prep, folks!
