US Gold/£29.99/Master System

No excuses for not knowing what the plot's all about. This game is old. Real old. Why, I remember when I was but two foot high and couldn't even step onto a skateboard... (Oi! Monteiro, you're straying. Ed.) So, anyhow your job is to successfully deliver papers to houses along a route over the course of a week. Your aim is to lose as few customers as possible.

Burning down the street on a BMX, you've got to lob papers through the letterboxes of your customers and try to smash the windows of non-customers. Yes, yes, I know - sounds like great fun. The trouble is you've got to work at getting papers in letterboxes; smashing windows is a cinch. If you miss mailboxes, home owners withdraw their subscriptions.

Completing a perfect round encourages non-subscribers to subscribe. Scattered along your route are numerous obstacles; some mobile, some stationary. Stereos, rastas on BMXs, babies, cars, skateboarders on acid, lamp posts, killer tomatoes - they're all there. Well, okay, perhaps not the killer tomatoes. Despite its simplicity and age. Paperboy is surprisingly addictive. It certainly brings out the vandal in you. The graphics are very colourful - the best of all 8-bit machine versions. And the breaking glass sound effects are a real treat.

THE VERDICT

83

Rating

83

Reviewer

Zero magazine

Region

UK

Scans

Zero-Magazine-Issue16?gallerypage=87