I'm canceling my newspaper subscription.
THE GOOD
-Groovy music
THE BAD
-Depth perception is hard to judge
-Clunky controls
-Bad Camera angles
OVERVIEW
Paperboy is a game about, yep you guessed it, delivering newspapers. As the paperboy you have to deliver newspapers to your customers for an entire week starting with Monday and ending on Sunday. This may seem like a simple task, until you take a look at the neighborhood you have to deliver too. It's basically the neighborhood from hell because cars will try to run you over; crazy grandmas will chase you with rolling pins (which look like butcher knives); and even a small tornado will hunt you down. To combat these foes you have your trusty bicycle and newspapers. Yeah, sounds like a fair fight…
GAMEPLAY
At the beginning of the game your paper route is shown. A map the neighborhood shows all the subscriber's houses in white and the non-subscriber's houses in red. After this the game starts. The objective is to throw a paper to the door or mailbox (more points) of all your subscribers. If you miss a subscriber's house or throw a newspaper through one of their windows, they will cancel the newspaper subscription the next day. To regain the confidence of your customers you must complete a perfect day by delivering to all the subscribers. Once you do this other households will sign on to receive a paper from you. Now as for the houses in red you get the chance to vandalize them. Feel free to chuck as many papers as you want at their windows for extra points. There are some other things to knock over like garbage cans and tombstones. Yeah that's right, for some reason it is the norm to bury your dead in the front lawn. Plus, there is a bonus round at the end of your route where you can show off your skills by making jumps and hitting targets. These fun extras spice up the gameplay a bit. Now, if you run out of lives or lose all your customers the game will end. The ultimate goal is to make it seven days in the business.
The weird part about this game is that your customers are the ones that try to stop you from delivering papers. On your journey you'll have to avoid obstacles like skate boarders, random tires, kids on tricycles, and my personal favorite the upset grandma. The concept for the game is clever but unfortunately, the camera angle and controls suck in Paperboy. Pressing up or down on the d-pad will make the paperboy's bike speed up or slow down, respectively. Just keep in mind that you can't stop. Throwing papers is done with the A button. The downfall in the control scheme is that it makes it difficult to maneuver around to deliver papers and avoid enemies. The camera angle is another nuisance that hinders the gameplay. The awkward angle really makes it difficult to accurately throw newspapers to your customers and in seeing upcoming obstacles because your depth perception is skewed. For the most part you'll end up throwing newspapers where you don't want them to go (like into customer's windows) or losing unnecessary lives because you can't avoid obstacles.
GRAPHICS & SOUND
The visuals are just like your "run of the mill" Nintendo game. Nothing too spectacular here.
The music is probably the best thing this game has going for it. The groovy tune is up-beat and fun to listen too. It almost makes you forget that the gameplay is sloppy.
CONCLUSION
Paperboy has many setbacks in the gameplay that end up making it frustrating to play. Not even the fun vandalizing portion of the game can save it from disaster. I wouldn't recommend this one because after playing for about ten minutes you'll be ready to throw your controller through a window. Sorry Paperboy but I'm canceling my subscription.