Quality Control, Video games

Quality Control – Road Runner’s Death Valley Rally

Box art for Road Runner's Death Valley Rally

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Now, while I did not beat this game, I did get considerably further than I could with Super Star Wars.

The Premise:

In a series of levels each designed to be their own Wile E. Coyote & Road Runner Cartoon, you, controlling the Road Runner, dash through the stages trying to reach the finish line of each stage.

The Good:

The game has an excellent sense of speed to it. Without exaggerating, I can say that this game is just as fast as the Sonic the Hedgehog games are. Additionally, the game is legitimately funny. Each “cartoon” starts off with an opening gag similar to the jokes from the cartoon series, and each “course” ends with a slapstick joke similar to those from the cartoons.

The Bad:

The Roadrunner’s controls aren’t great. Jumps are really floaty, and his attacks are hard to pull off.  Sometimes his turbo-boost is more effective than others are.

The Ugly:

As you get further in the game, the levels become more and more complicated, to a point that the difficulty in the game becomes less related to evading enemies and more related to finding the exit in time – which is unfortunate because the final boss fight in the game looks incredibly interesting, and I’m disappointed that I couldn’t make it to that fight. Unfortunately, the level for the last stage is so complicated that the map in Nintendo Power wasn’t of any assistance to me at all.

The Verdict:

This is a pretty fun game, and I’d say that the game could reasonably be considered the SNES’s answer to Sonic. Again, it’s not perfect, but I’d say that it’s worth picking it up, if you come across a copy.

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