(chaotic good play through on authentic super nintendo with direct A/V connection) Paperboy 2 harkens back to a time when any westerner that didn't know better had a subscription to paper misinformation. The now-decaying industry of the physical print news publication was at the time a staple of American society. Along with it, the success of the Paperboy franchise itself relied solely on the fact that the audience had not yet been desensitized by video images commonly found in games depicting acts ranging from brutal violence to gratuitous sexual situations that we are so fond of and familiar with today. As graphics and threshold for more rewarding overstimulation advanced in the gaming world, the release of Paperboy 64 in 1998 signified that the Paperboy who was once a strong warrior was now just a bitch of the past. But the series as a whole: to me Paperboy 2 is the ultimate release in the franchise. Did the hard difficulty have to do as well for it's staggering lack of mainstream success? Let's discuss the world of Paperboy 2... 30 years ago, the world was a much different place. But in the same way, the mythos of Paperboy 2 reaffirms that the dangers we face in society today have been with us for generations. Potholes line the streets. Lazy moving company stooges drop a couch on your doorstep, causing a blockade. Motor vehicles run cyclists off of the road for no reason other than an ever burning rage caused by modern life. The obstacles in Paperboy 2 are timeless and though the faces have changed, the classic conundrum of getting shot with a cannonball by the anarchists down the block is still a reassured constant when living in the United States. The game is divided into three sections. Easy Street, Middle Road, and Hard Way. This is a metaphor for life as we know it. You may think you're on easy street, but eventually you'll get caught in the middle of a hard place. Or something like that. As the game progresses, the levels become slightly longer, but it always behooves you to deliver the papers and keep your mouth shut. Maybe smash some windows on the houses that don't subscribe to keep your street cred up. Watch out for the vandals and drunk drivers. You need those subscribers. If all your people are happy, you get an extra life. Stack those early in the game, because you'll need them for the third portion. Make one wrong move, and you'll soon lose your pace. As the difficulty of mailbox/door placement progresses throughout, so do the terrors you'll soon face. As a former paperboy, I would say that this game is pretty unrealistic. The grueling dystopian society of Paperboy 2 has you not only at the hands of everyday issues as previously stated, but pits you against a range of supernatural enemies such as ghosts, gargoyles that shoot fireballs, and possessed birds that I can't figure out how to hit all of. The more things you hit the more points you get. This brings us to an ethical crisis: Do we cause harm to the hapless mechanic who has no interest in a subscription to mainstream news by nailing the hood down of the car he's working on onto his body with my printed news materials that he could care less for in the first place? Maybe his apathy towards the world around him lies in his beliefs. Maybe his job is so demanding that he doesn't quite have the time he wishes he could to read up on what celebrities are crapping out nowadays and the football man don't stand up. But sometimes you just got to make an honest living. Maybe the answer is that the mechanic is just a video game mechanic and that there really is no moral crisis. You be the judge. In conclusion, Paperboy 2 is a hard game that I'm going to beat in this video. I have beaten the game before, but it still takes to this day a great deal of focus and determination to make it through to the end with a life to spare. As you play this game, please take note of how the music doesn't change the whole time. This song has been stuck in my head for years and will remain there until the very last brain activity of my existence has elapsed. At the ass-end of each level, there is an obstacle course that players can utilize to greatly improve their score. It takes an immense chunk of speed away from my overall time so I crash right away on most of them, but I'm still gonna run thru it on the very last turn just so you get to experience an amazing piece of music that plays as you traverse the obstacle course. It is a fitting end to beating a challenging and unappreciated game that I've come back to time and time again.
