Newsgroups: rec.games.video
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 16:37:56 -0500 
From: Chadley Kaye Dawson <cd1f+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: [SNES] REVIEW: Road Runner

I rented Road Runner's Death Valley Rally last night and
here are my comments:

Music/sound: Good. The sounds and BGM come from the LoonyToons
             cartoons, and if you close your eyes you would
             think you were listening to the soundtrack of
             a cartoon. Even has the "that's all folks" ending
             (although no voice sample). Personally I'm not
	     a big LoonyToon fan, but I did not find the
	     BGM too distracting.
	     

Graphics:   I only played two levels of the game, both of these
            were in the desert (As I assume most of the levels
            are). The levels are pretty big (screensize wise),
            but the detail is not that great. Pretty much repetitive
            red-rock textured cliffs and platforms. The characters
            and other objects are fairly detailed though, although
            since the game is trying to simulate a cartoon look,
            none of the graphics are any better than what you
            would expect watching the cartoon on TV. Most however,
            are comparable.


Game/Play:  Your player (the road runner) is a bit gangly. When he
            runs around it is a bit like sonic the hedgehog [SEGA]
            in that the screen scrolls by fast and the character
            follows the terrain until you jump or something and
            go flying into the air. You can also "walk" slowly
            and skid to a stop (anyone remember Joust? well its
            kind of like that...). 
            At the end of each level you get an added score for
            each "flag" that the roadrunner finds. Somewhat like
            SuperMarioWorld most of the flags are  hidden in "secret"
            parts of the level or in particularly difficult areas
            to jump to. It seems that a good part of the "fun" of
            the game would be to run around trying weird jumps
            to see if you can find the secret stuff. Sometimes
            you find things by accident if you take a bad fall.
            I found the jumping (especially from moving platform
            to moving platform) to be difficult as the roadrunner
            has difficulty in jumping without skidding, and if
            you skid on a moving platform, you often fall off,
            or "through" the platform. Maybe this "technique" gets
            better with practice, but I found it to be frustrating.
	    I prefer more controlled precision jumping and timing like
            in SF2n as opposed to this roadrunner who seems like he
	    is going to run into everything. 
            Also, you cannot jump down, which seems like an oversight.
            Certain buttons on the joypad make the roadrunner jump
            up or turn to face you and go "meep meep", which might
            of been fun if these functions actually were good for
            anything. 


Overall I found the game to be entertaining. I would buy it only if
you are a big fan of roadrunner and like games where you spend
a lot of time on a level trying to find secret jumps ect... I was
disappointed with this game as a rental, since I felt I could either
try to finish the game (get through all the levels to see the ending
without trying to get all the flags on each level), or explore the
first few levels and try to get all the flags and not get to the end.
I like rentals to be ones which I can finish in one rental (or
at least get a code so I can start back where I left off the
next time I rent the game). Hopefully I've given you enough
info so you won't have to rent the game to see if you'd like
to buy it. Enjoy,

-chad-dawson-


Xref: sparky rec.games.video:26351 alt.games.lynx:1446