Paperboy

Looking over all the systems Paperboy has been released on I am quite surprised this is our first review of the game. Paperboy is an arcade classic, one that survived most its port to the Lynx. It all started in 1984 in the arcade as one of the few job simulators you would actually want to play. It's been on most every console since then, the most recent incarnation to be in about a month on the Gameboy Advance.

As I have said in the past, arcade ports are generally shoddy most of the time; miraculously Paperboy makes a good transition to the Atari Lynx. The graphics are bright, colorful, and give off a cartoon feel. There is generally a lot going on in the background, ranging from cars honking, kids fighting, and random objects rolling towards you or in your path. You need a quick hand and good coordination to play this game and complete your job. Unfortunately there is no way to stop completely, making it all that much harder.

Paperboy contains three tracks; Easy Street, Middle Road, and the Hard Way. The tracks pretty much resemble each other and are more of a difficulty setting then anything else. The object of this game (as you can probably tell) is to deliver the paper -- The Daily Sun. But where it takes an odd twist is where the game picks up; the people that didn't sign up for the Daily Sun are the bad guys, and it is your mission to break their windows, and knock them over when ever and how ever you can -- most of the time with news papers.

It is never too hard to differentiate between the subscribers and non-subscribers, as the ones that want the paper have big bright colorful houses, and the enemy owns dark and dreary houses. If you are lucky enough to survive a day on the streets, and manage to get people to stay on as subscribers, you will be rewarded with an obstacle course.

When the day is said and done, and your score is tallied up, you will get a chance to make it on a score board of the top five players, unfortunately as soon as the system is turned off all those records go with it, defeating the purpose of a score tracking system at all. Even though you won't be able to impress your friends with your score, at least you will have a cheering crowd of fans after each level.

This port of Paperboy is a good on-the-go rendition of the arcade original, though not nearly as fast-paced as other versions. The game is not too involving, which makes it even a better portable game. It is probably a game you want in your Lynx collection, but not one to go hunting for.