• Released in 1991
• Developed by Mindscape
• Genre: Newsprint Distribution
• Popularity Level: Chicago White Sox
• Leonardite Rating: Befuddlingly Engaging













• I would love to have been in on the brainstorming session for this one. Just imagine what it would have sounded like:

Guy: Fujikisama mu lekamakaboo...

Wait, let me revise that. I would love to have been in on the brainstorming session, only with the dialogue translated for me.

Guy: Now, let's see what's on the market. Games where you shoot people's brains out? Yeah, there are those. Games where you clumsily wander around, not really sure what creature you are or what you are doing? Plenty of those. I don't know guys, what do you think?

Guy 2: How about a game with futuristic aliens who have other aliens growing out of their brains and you have to gore them with large spears before they mate with themselves to create new aliens?

Guy 3: How about a game where you can just randomly drive around a city and steal cars and stuff, all the while performing various acts of crime to a gritty soundtrack?

Guy 4: How about we make a game about how I get my daily helping of Marmaduke?

I bet the CEO of the company had a coronary when he learned the development team was programming a game after the paper boy. Originally created with the sole intent of having a lame, harmless game that you could play in front of your parents without worrying, this was the anti-Bubble Bath Babes of the NES.

As movies and oral history have taught us, Japan is a wacky land full of huge monsters, words that don't correspond to lip movement, and misproportioned baseball players. Their neighborhoods are a lot more interesting than ours as well. As someone who didn't grow up on a city street, I'm not the best to be the judge of this subject. But I think the craziest thing I ever saw on the street in Leonard was two clowns performing Shakespeare and I'm completely making that up. Overall, I can't really remember seeing anything out of the ordinary, unless we're talking about Halloween in which case I plead the Fifth.


But in Japan, people mingle with the Lord's henchmen without much care as the Grim Reaper makes his way out onto the street occasionally. That's right, Death himself takes a break from taking the souls of stool pigeons and terrorists to scare the paper boy. Perhaps someone wrote an editorial about him that was less than flattering or maybe he had a bone to pick with the entertainment director, but I don't think that this is any reason to be knocking the delivery boy off of his bicycle. What really blows my mind however is that running into Death is as damaging as running into a fence or slipping in the garden. They both take a turn (or "life") away. So perhaps he was out here to save face, because either Death is a complete fraud or we could just as well have a Grim Woman Running with a Rolling Pin to do his job.

That's another one that always gets me, the wench that leaves Katie Couric's fall fashion preview on the Today Show to come out and knock the bejezus out of the newspaper kid. I'm not sure if she's dealing with a messy divorce or maybe just spooked because she woke up and found Death sleeping on her deck, but that's no reason to take it out on our two-wheeled hero.

Then you get the other random obstacles. Alexi Lalas skates by and tries to kill you with his skateboard, super-intelligent tires roll out on their own and aim for you, breakdancers get down right in the driveway like M.C. Hammer is performing for them, and construction workers ambiguously use their jackhammers in a creepily suggestive way. In other words, this sounds like a typical day at Michael Jackson's house.


So what is the point of the game? It is your job, as a super-secret spy from the Food Lion corporation to, while under the guise of a paper boy, infiltrate Emeril Lagasse's house and steal a recipe for italian meatballs while also trying to steal his TV. Nope, uh, I guess it's just to deliver papers.

While this sounds about as exciting as a doughnut fight at Krispy Kreme (Wait, that does sound exciting. Wrong example), it actually turns out to be fun. You can drive around and stick papers on the doorsteps and mailboxes of your subscribers, while breaking apart the houses of your nonsubscribers.

Some of you might be wondering how you tell the difference. In addition to a brilliantly useless map at the beginning of the game, the creators also harnessed the NES's considerable power by ingeniously making the evil nonsubscribers' houses red. After a perfect day, you'll gain a new subscriber and the former heathen will self-sacrifice a limb, cleanse themselves in boiling Crisco, and paint their house in addition to receiving a daily paper.

Here's another way to keep the subscriber/nonsubscriber houses straight:

Nonsubscribers: Have people buried in the front yard.
Subscribers: No people buried in the front yard.

The gravestones in the yard will help to clearly identify the houses from the mausoleums. So after you identify the houses of the enemy, you are rewarded by getting points for busting stuff up in them. Luckily, as is shown on the Daily Sun front page ("Mysterious Vandalism Baffles Police") the whatever-ville police department is delightfully inept.


Caller: Yes, I'd like to report some vandalism.
Officer: Okay, can you give me any details?
Caller: Well, there's a broken window and a newspaper inside my house that shouldn't be.
Officer: Have you been examined by a doctor?
Caller: What? I'm talking about a broken window.
Officer: Was the physician certified?
Caller: And a newspaper...
Officer: What are the degree of the injuries?
Caller: Listen, some kid broke my damn window with a newspaper...
Officer: Did you let anybody go through your bags while they were unattended?

After you get through the neighborhood designed by Tim Burton, you have to cross the street where Hell's Grandmothers are having their weekly drag race. After that, it's on to the super fantabular training course. You can do all kinds of wickedly cool things like throw newspapers through a hoop and jump over puddles. If that doesn't scream excitement, then my name isn't Fennis Dembo.

Bottom Line:

Yes, the life of the paper boy is tough. You have to endure quite a lot to take on this job, but when you get to the end and are greeted with a hearty wave from the guy with no head, it makes it all worth it.



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This is about what I imagine the game's hero looking like at age 40. The stressful paper route has taken his toll on him, but not nearly as much as people not believing him when he says he eluded the Grim Reaper.





Thanks to the paper boy's diligence, we can continue to get knee-slappers like this one on a daily basis.





It's bad enough when the kid gets attacked by a puppy, but this poor bastard is about to get shot.





Taken from a GameFAQs.com review of Paperboy:
"The game had a nice tune while you where on your bike. It had a nice happy, cheerful tune to it. Their were only a few sounds, the honks made by a car or truck as they came by, the smashing sound when the paper hit the window, etc. Overall, Paperboy doesn't great in this department, since it's music was nicely done and the sounds were fairly entertaining, I really liked the game's music alot. Greatly done! Classic tunes at it's best! "

He then went on to describe how he makes love to himself to this wonderful music, but it was later removed after three people protested and another kicked the crap out of the reviewer.






"Arrrrrrgh! I'd finish chasing you, Crane, but I heard the paper boy just hopped over a puddle and he needs waving at."






The now-teenage paper boy gets the Reaper to buy cigarettes for him.

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