Paperboy/Rampage
is two games in one, but since both games are half-assed
you'd be wrong to consider this as one decent game.
(To arrive at such a conclusion you might take each
game, divide it in half, add the two halves together
and come up with the result of one. This would be
wrong. Whatever you do, don't try this at home.)
Two
wrongs don't make a right. They make a left and get
out of town by sundown, possibly stopping in at the
local 7-11 for a Slurpee.
Everyone
is going to be disappointed in this "dumbnamic
duo." If you're a nostalgia buff looking to recapture
your youth, you might want to try a hairpiece instead
because the only thing you'll be reminded about is
how you wasted your life until now.
Both
Paperboy and Rampage are terrible ports - and even
if you've never played them before, you'll be wondering
what the fuss is about. They don't hold up in today's
market. I'm sure you've played mini-games that had
more depth than these offerings.
In
Paperboy, you have a bicycle and a delivery route.
Your job is to deliver papers to homes on your route
by launching them into mailboxes. It takes careful
aim and timing to get it right. All the while you
will be avoiding traffic, kids, animals and potholes.
In its day it was cutting edge but that was some 20
years ago. At least the controls were good. The problem
with this version is that the bicycle is unsteady.
It's more difficult to control than the original but
it's not more challenging, it's just more annoying.
Sometimes after you crash you will crash again for
no apparent reason, as though you failed to get back
on the bike before the game started again.
Rampage
is the game that features huge, mutated creatures
climbing atop buildings and pummeling them with their
fists in an effort to free their soon-to-be-mutated
friends that are destined for scientific experiments.
The novelty of this game was the ability to destroy
environments such as a city. Destructive environments
are old hat now and considering the old-school graphics,
there's not much to get excited about watching falling
pixels.
As
old arcade freaks know, Rampage was best played with
three players. But don't expect a multi-player mode
in this version - even though the box art clearly
shows the game in multi-player mode. Misleading? I'm
sure it was all just a terrible mistake
About
the only thing the developers got right are the graphics.
Considering how low-res they are, it's not much of
an accomplishment. The colors and animations are the
way that I remember them but the control issues are
another story, not to mention the sound effects. In
Paperboy the sound cues are all screwed up and seem
to be activated randomly. In some instances, after
you successfully land a paper in the box the boy will
say he's sorry - as though he missed. Perhaps he's
just apologizing for the state of the entire game.
|