Quick Thoughts: Paperboy For Sega Genesis

Hello dear readers and welcome back to the game room. If you had an NES when you were a kid, it's likely that you either owned or at least have heard of the game Paperboy. Originally released as an arcade game in 1984 and then ported to the NES in 1988, Paperboy is about as simple of a concept for a game as you can get: you deliver papers to houses each day of the week. However, the gameplay was a whole lot more than just that- you can gain or lose subscribers depending on how well you do, you have to avoid a ridiculous array of obstacles such as runaway tires, construction workers, breakdancers, and even the grim reaper himself, and it takes quite a bit of skill to land every paper on a doormat without breaking a few windows or smashing into anything yourself.

It has a distinct arcade style to it, and by that I mean there's less emphasis on a story or anything and more on getting the high score and testing your skill and accuracy. However, unlike many other arcade games that didn't make the jump to home consoles very gracefully, Paperboy did just fine on the NES as a game and is still very fun to play to this day. It's not a perfect game and tends to get a little boring faster than other games, but it's one that I've always enjoyed ever since I was a kid and can still pick up any time I get a chance.

However, what I want to talk about today is the Sega Genesis version of the game. Released by Tengen (the company best known for making those weirdly shaped black NES cartridges) in 1991, the Genesis port took a number of liberties with the game that make it quite different from the NES version I've been accustomed to for most of my life. I was actually a bit surprised to find out that the game was even released on Genesis at all, let alone that it was different from the NES version in any way. I've owned it for quite some time but haven't had much of a chance to play it until recently, so I have a few thoughts on it while it's fresh on my mind.

Well, it's not drastically different from the NES version. The general gameplay, controls, sound effects and music are all pretty much the same. However, there are a few upgrades in this version which make it pretty interesting (going from 8-bit to 16-bit, this should be expected). Firstly, a major difference is that there are now three distinct difficulty levels that can be chosen right off the bat- easy, medium and hard modes. This balances out the difficult a bit better than its NES counterpart, which had no selectable difficulty settings.

As I mentioned before, the graphical improvements are nice. Characters have a few added frames of animation, colors are more vibrant, and there seems to be a lot more "going on" at all times. For example, you can be riding down the road and there will be tires rolling at you, a man jackhammering, cars driving down the street, and kids riding bikes all in the same area. This increases the difficulty a bit too, as you'll be fighting to focus on landing a paper on a stoop while avoiding all of the obstacles at the same time. 

There seems to be a lot more things happening at once in the Genesis version as opposed to the NES version. I mean, how are you supposed to avoid an old lady pushing a grocery cart, not get run over by a car, smack a burglar trying to break into a house with a paper for extra points, AND deliver a paper to the house at the same time?

Another added effect in the Genesis version is the inclusion of digitized voices, a pretty novel concept at the time. Your character will frequently comment on how you are doing (for example, saying something like "what a great toss!" when you land a paper in a mailbox, or "one less customer" if you smash a window) and will also do so whenever you smack into something. By far the funniest thing he says, which I could not stop laughing at, is when you run into the drunk guy. Yes, there's a DRUNK GUY hobbling around as an obstacle in this game. Even better- when you hit him, your character will say "man, that guy's wasted!" Now that's amazing.

Yup, that guy in the suit is plastered and the game knows it. That's honestly the main reason I wanted to do a review of this game.

It's definitely a fun game, but sort of falls victim to the same problems as the original as well. The 45° perspective does give the game challenge, but also makes it fairly difficult to time your paper toss correctly most of the time. Also, there seems to be just too many things to run into, even more so in the Genesis version. You'll constantly be dodging obstacles, sometimes having to choose between not even attempting a paper throw or losing a life. However, there's actually less of a penalty for not throwing any papers- in fact, as long as you keep one single subscriber on the block of 20 houses, you can just keep playing and only have to deliver to that one house. Sure, you won't get as many points, but who cares? It's not like a high score is saved or anything, unlike the arcade version. Pretty ironic in a game where the primary objective is supposed to be delivering the papers, right?

Anyway, so that's Paperboy for Sega Genesis. Fun game, generally regarded as a classic, tends to get old a tad quick, but definitely good for a laugh when you crash your bike into a drunk pedestrian. Thanks for reading.