Paperboy 07/03/98

Paperboy? Pestilence boy, more like.

Once upon a time, two children lived near a forest. Their mother had told them never to get lost in the forest, and that the way to do that was to lay a trail to guide them back home.

So, one day, the two children (Whose names were Bill and Osmond) went into the forest by themselves. To make sure that they wouldn't get lost, they laid a trail of breadcrumbs behind them. After an hour or so, they noticed that it was beginning to get dark and so decided to turn back. As they turned, they noticed with horror that all their breadcrumbs had been eaten by ants.

"Oh no! What will we do now?" cried Bill. But Osmond, always the smarter one of the pair, had an idea.

"Relax, brother. We will simply wait for darkness to fall, and then stumble around blindly. We will then emerge in a clearing where we shall find a house occupied by a witch. She shall surely capture us, planning to fatten our bodies and then eat us. Of course, being children, we shall thwart her evil scheme and push her into her own oven."

Of course, Bill agreed with this plan immediately. Both settles down to wait for darkness to fall completely, and soon both were fast asleep.

Unfortunately, due to climatic changes caused by excess burning of witches and hence atmospheric build up of CO2, a freak blizzard fell that night and both boys died of hypothermia.

But anyway.

For some utterly bizarre reason, it often seems like everyone in the world has heard of Paperboy. And, often, I've attributed that to one thing. Some quiz program that used to be on BBC 1 at 5:40. (This was before Neighbours appeared, obviously.) I can't remember what it was called, but it had Carol Vorderman hosting it (No it didn't, it was called "First Class" and was hosted by ex-Miss United Kingdom, Debbie Greenwood. Tch. - Ed.) Once the contestants had answered a certain number of questions, they had a bonus round. This consisted of one of two things. Either some joystick-waggling sports game (Hyper Sports - Ed.), or...

Paperboy.

For an even more bizarre reason, this game was held to be "Family entertainment". Obviously, whoever was responsible for this idea had a great sense of irony.

Because Paperboy isn't "Family entertainment". It was the late 80's equivalent of GTA. For perpetrating various acts of immorality, you would gain bonus points.

"But Matthew!" I hear you cry in a tediously overused comic device. (Anyone who's got a better idea, please feel free to share it with me.) "Paperboy is a cute game consisting merely of a paperboy attempting to earn an honest living by delivering papers!"

You're so utterly, truly and horribly wrong it hurts. You've obviously never played Paperboy before, or you were 7 years old the last time you did.

True, in Paperboy you control a paperboy. You have papers to deliver. You score points for delivering the papers. But, my friends, that is where the similarity ends.

You see, each level in Paperboy consists of two parts. In the first, you cycle along the street, avoiding obstacles and hurling newspapers with gusto. At the end of the street, you enter an assault course type section. You now have targets to aim at, while attempting to reach the end of the course before the end of the time limit.

The time limit? Odd, you may think. Up to now, no time limit had been mentioned.

Indeed, there is no time limit for the main section of the level. It matters not how long you take to complete the delivery of the papers. You could just crawl along at the lowest speed possible. The time limit applies only to the assault course section, and is dependent upon your performance in the previous section.

"Ah!" you cry. (Obviously nobody's written to me yet. Tch.) "So, the more papers you deliver to their owners, the more time you have?"

Again, you're wrong. What are you, stupid or something? Or what?

To gain extra time for the bonus section, you have to hit various things with your papers. Such as people. Windows. Gravestones.

Yes, gravestones. For every gravestone you desecrate with your newspapers, you gain more time for the bonus section.

Family entertainment? Tch.

There's only one possible explanation that I can think of for this. Paperboy was originally destined to be an adult adventure, exploring the depths of morality. Through performing various immoral acts, you would gradually discover the true meaning of happiness and therefore not have to go out and really kill someone.

"Oh no!" shouted the management at ("Atari Games" - Ed.). "We can't possibly have this! We're a publisher of family entertainment. Do something with this game at once."

"Drat." thought the programmers. "We're going to have to rewrite the whole thing."

"Hang on a mo," said the graphics person. "Why don't we just change the graphics? Nobody would ever suspect a paperboy as being a harbringer of evil, would they? The demons could be changed into lawnmowers, the fallen angels could be replaced with remote control cars, and Satan himself can be a mad car driver."

And so we have it. What other explanation could there be?

But let's ignore that. Pretend, for a moment, that Paperboy was released in its original intended form. Probably with some mutilated Latin name, or something. It's an admirable idea. But, despite this, I would like to see everyone involved in its production die horribly.

Paperboy, to be frank, is a staggeringly poor game. The collision detection is so utterly dire that you can move through some objects without a care in the world, and yet a remote control car clearly passing more than a metre away from you somehow manages to make you crash. Clearly some form of advanced defence system for suburban houses.

And it's horribly unrealistic. You gain extra newspapers by picking them up off the pavement. Meaning that they've already been delivered to within 10 metres of their destination, and yet a paperboy is sent to carry them the rest of the way. People wait outside their front door until you appear, and then run straight at you. Car tyres bounce around randomly (Obviously evidence of a horrific car crash in a parallel dimension and a weak spot in the fabric of space-time) and it is sometimes impossible to avoid a collision.

"Of course it is Matthew", you cry once more. (Someone? Please?) "Where would the challenge be otherwise?"

Let me explain. Brake as hard as you can while still some distance from an obstacle. You will slow to a crawl, still a good distance away. But there's no way you're going to get around it. Try as you might, the paperboy will crash into the wall at low speed, instead of stopping, moving his bike and continuing. Or simple turning harder. The clot.

And I haven't even begun to mention the dire music (Worse than Maxis at their worst. Believe me.), awful graphics (That's a bike?) and distinct lack of enjoyment (That's a game?).

Look, I'll come to the point. Paperboy is crap. It is entirely unworthy of existence. It should never have been created. Never. Ever. Ever.

Of course, there's the last-gasp redeeming features. Hnngh. This is a tough one.

Ah, yes. There's the bit where the amusingly fat American jogs in front of you unless you knock him over with a newspaper (A newspaper? Against an immovable object? I think not.) Oh, and a so-bad-it's-funny intro on the Lazarus version, written by DeeJay99 himself (But not really, obv. - Ed.)

So, Paperboy. The best things about it are an intro written in 1997 and a poorly drawn sprite of a fat person. That about sums it up, really. Matthew Garrett