***THE FOLLOWING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS. CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN WILL***
It happened back in the eighties and it will never happen again, unless of course you're one of those people who love the game known as Paperboy. Paperboy would become so popular that it would be ported to almost every home console and handheld that came out through the late eighties and nineties. The game would eventually get a sequel on the Super Nintendo, Paperboy 2, as well as a 3D version on the Nintendo 64. For today's blog though I am going to look at the port on the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Paperboy was actually the very first NES game developed in the United States. It was originally developed as an arcade game by Atari and ported to the NES in 1988. The story of Paperboy is quite simply and very easy to understand. You play as the paperboy who spends his mornings doing his paper route. He must deliver the newspapers to the correct houses for seven days. So the game is a seven day long paper delivery marathon. The game sounds easy right? Personally I think it fits right in the middle as far as difficulty goes, not too hard, but not easy either. The game does have a nice difficulty scale though as things get more chaotic as the week goes on. Keeping in mind that this game was originally an arcade game from the mid eighties, lets take a look and see what the game is like.
Visually the game is pretty simple. You ride your bike down a typical suburban street that is full of hazards. It's easy to tell what the hazards are, but it's not easy to tell whether or not you're going to hit them until often times the last minute. Another visual issue that new players may find with this game is that the game almost looks like it's on a diagonal. After a couple rounds though that disorienting view becomes normal.... At least it did with me...
The graphics for what the game is and the era it came out in are simple, but not bad. Far worse looking games exist both in the arcades and the Nintendo. As far as sound goes, there isn't much to hear really. The same melody plays each day of the week, so that'll get stuck in your head. Other than that there is a bonus area with a different tune and that's about it for music. Other sounds in the game are what I would call ok. The sound of the newspaper smacking into things sounds pretty good, but the sound that is made when you crash sounds like a small explosion versus simply falling off a bike. I guess the sound of glass shattering when you throw the paper through a window is pleasant in that oh crap kind of way. Other than those things, not much to talk about here.
Now for the big part of the game that makes Paperboy both unique and interesting, the gameplay. Each day starts off with a map showing you which houses are subscribed to the newspaper and which ones aren't. The houses are color coded so thankfully you do not need to memorize the map. Subscribers are easy to lose, but difficult to gain. If you miss a house, or break a subscriber's window with a paper, you will lose the subscription. If you get a perfect delivery percentage on a level, you will gain a subscriber. The game will only count a delivery if you land the paper in a mailbox or doorstep. Keep in mind that you are moving, so your paper will not fly in a straight line. So where is the fun in this? Well you can rake in points by causing utter destruction of the neighborhood. Windows on non subscriber's houses are free game and a great way to earn some points. Other things such as lamps, garbage cans, and tombstones (what?) can all be knocked over for some bonus points. Just be careful not to run out of papers for your clients. If you do you can find some more along the way, but you'll probably miss a house or two.
The life of a paperboy is full of danger as things such as rogue tires and lawnmowers, dogs, skateboarders, angry clients, tornadoes, and the grim reaper are all out to prevent you from making that delivery. On a final gameplay note, the controls work okay at best. Paperboy goes where you want him to go, but the small area of the screen in which you can work with makes dodging obstacles very difficult. Add to that the speed factor of the paperboy. He is not very fast on that bike so trying to make a quick dodge may send you in the right direction, but not fast enough to avoid wrecking the bike.
On a scale of 1 to 10 I'd throw Paperboy a 7. There's just something about this game that is strangely addicting. Somehow Atari managed to take a now basically non-existent job and turn it into a functioning game. The challenge is certainly there and that challenge spans through the countless ports of this game that exist today. The NES version of the game boasts plain, but effective 8-bit graphics The sounds and music though leave more to be desired, but is an improvement over the arcade original. The real plus side to Paperboy is in the end it's gameplay. It's something really unique that hasn't really been replicated in an effective way. Sure the game has a sequel and a 3D version, but neither of those really stack up to the original game. Yes, it has it's issues, and today looks quite dated considering the time it came out and the fact that paperboys are an oddity now, but the game is still quite fun. Tack on the sheer amount of history that this game has going for it and you have a solid classic that has aged, but is worth throwing a couple quarters at in a retro arcade or playing on a cheap cartridge on the NES.
Thanks for reading this short review on Paperboy. Next up on the review side of things will be a look at a spin-off Mega Man game known as Mega Man Soccer.
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