What
is in a name? I often find it funny when the name of a game gets
changed from region to region, sometimes there are legal reasons
sometimes they just think a particular name will help something sell
better to a certain group of people. Here we have a game known in Europe
as Looney Tunes: Road Runner, in America as Road Runner's Death Valley
Rally,and in Japan as Looney Tunes: Road Runner vs. Wile E. Coyote. The
game is based off the Looney Tunes characters Wile E. Coyote and Road
Runner, maybe the name has something to do with the cartoons popularity
or image in each region who knows. What I do know is I probably like
Japans title the best as Wile E. Coyote is the star of the show in my
mind. Sure we are supposed to like Road Runner but why? Because he runs
away a lot and makes cheeky little meep meep noises? I cant help but
relate to Wile the guy/animal who is just trying to do what is expected
of him, who is trying to eat, to survive and keeps having life backfire
in his face.
I
kind of walked in to this game expecting a mediocre game, largely
because it is made by SunSoft and its a Looney Tunes game, so I was
judging it a little bit based on my thoughts to Tazmania which I played a
while ago.
The graphics are pretty decent,
they have a fair degree of character in them but don't get bogged down
with to much detail, the sprites for Wile and the runner are cool and
the graphics automatically remind you of the old cartoon while still
managing to be clear and not get in the way of the game itself. If I
have one major gripe in this area however it is the fact that the
backgrounds are the same throughout the entire level, this does make
things seem a little more boring at times than they perhaps should but I
guess its not the worst thing in the world.The sound in this game is a
little hard for me to judge sound effects wise there is very little,
there's the typical skidding noise, a jump noise, a pecking noise, the
odd meep meep and a few noises associated with things attacking you. The
music for the levels well it sits right on the middle of the fence
between being catchy and annoying to the point that I cant even come to a
conclusion if I like it or hate it....all I can say is you wont find
yourself doing a Mario and humming any of this latter when you have
moved away from the console.
The
gameplay is kind of what you'd expect your the runner and you run, Wile
is constantly after you and you are trying to escape from him. So each
level has you running past obstacles, making jumps and trying to find
your way until you reach the finish, usually at the end of the level
there will be some quick confrontation with Wile for example in the
first level he chases you with a steam roller, you win and you get to
see him beaten usually in the end somehow by one of his own devices in
typical comic fashion. The ways that he tries to stop you may change but
the strategies and weak points are always pretty easy to work out and
adapt to on the fly. The largest flaw is that the gameplay is
repetitive, which gives you no incentive to play the game for extended
periods. The speed at which the game can move sometimes because an issue
as things fly past without giving you adequate time to deal with them,
it was almost enough to make me wish that I was playing a Pal copy on a
Pal machine to see if the usual drop in speed pal games can experience
helped. Knowing other games I have set aside to review though I know
that this is an issue quite a few platformers bumped into, some of them
could really have used a good long play on the sonic the hedgehog games
to look at how they deal with this issue.
Road
Runner: Death Valley Rally is an average game in every single way. It
just leaves you with a feeling of complete and utter averageness, its
not good enough to remember nor is it bad enough to laugh at or get mad
at, it just exists in the middle neither good nor bad. 5 out of 10 all
day long. If you want to try it a Pal cart will fetch you about £10 you
might get an American for closer to £5 but strangely the Japanese copies
I have seen have been more money, maybe people don't realize that its
the same game or maybe not may came out over there, who knows sometimes
the retro video game market is a beast with no rhyme or reason.
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