Racing video games are a genre of video games in which players participate in competitions on different types of lands like, air, sea or roads with various vehicles. From simple arcade games to hardcore simulations, racing games have a first or third person perspective.
Moto-Cross, one of the first third person perspective dirt bike games was released in 1976 by Sega and later that year it was remade under the name of Fonz. The black-and-white game involved a motocross competitions where players had to avoid on-coming motorcycles while racing against the clock. Sega included a haptic feedback that made the handlebars vibrate when colliding into other objects.
Excitebike is a Nintendo franchise that first debuted in 1984 for Famicom and in 1985 for NES. First of the series, it was succeeded by dirt bike games Excitebike: World Rally and Excitebike 3D available for $5.99 at the Nintendo eShop. The player can race against the computer or a friend on ten courses and custom-made tracks. There are three difficulty levels, beginner, intermediate and advanced. Each track can be played as a challenge race the first time and as a Excitebike race the second time. To advance, the player must come in 5th place or higher.
Rainbow Studios developed a series of dirt bike games in 1998 named Motocross Madness and Motocross Madness 2 two years later. The game is famous for its realistic terrain with motorcycle wrecks and audio sound. If a player goes beyond the bounds on large cliffs, an invisible slingshot will fly the bike across, playing a funny sound until it reaches the ground. A Career mode can be selected but it can also be payed in Baja, Enduro, Stunts, National and Supercross mode. The sequel, Avatar Motocross madness is planned for the future and a XBLA game named Motocross Madness was released in 2013. The Rivals mode allows the player to compete against avatar ghosts and in the Trick mode he discovers new combos. The eight-player Xbox option and two-player split-screen mode are available for those that prefer racing against human opponents.
Trials HD is a 2.5D Live Arcade puzzle/racing game published by Microsoft Game Studios in 2009. In 2012 a special Microsoft Windows version was announced named Trials Evolution: Gold Edition. Highly appreciated by critics, Trials received Best Overall Arcade Game, Best Innovation awards and was ranked 86/100 at Metalcritic. In 2010 IGN rated the game sixteenth in their top twenty-five Xbox Live Arcade titles of all time, with sales exceeding two million copies.
