Paperboy: The Complete History | Retro Gaming Documentary

[@aking-plums6985]

I can remember getting a job as a paperboy to buy a copy of paperboy at my local video game shop.

[@ChrisBeech-b5r]

Then got sacked for throwing the papers at random dogs?

[@aking-plums6985]

@@ChrisBeech-b5r I think it was taking out an old lady with my bike =(

[@ChrisBeech-b5r]

@@aking-plums6985 that's not funny my nan was sadly taken too soon by a psycopathic paper boy..ironically it didn't make the news

[@aking-plums6985]

@@ChrisBeech-b5r Soz mate, the shop keeper said apparently you didn't need a cycling proficiency test to work for him. He also mentioned just as I was ready to go that if anyone caused an "accident" blame it on the local cycling club. I had always wondered why when delivering papers, that the shopkeeper said I had to wear the same cycling gear as Greg Lemond.

[@Naruga]

Papeception

[@Mystemo]

The Mega Drive version of Paperboy had a hilariously bad Swedish manual absolutely filled with insane translation mistakes. The most outrageous without a doubt being translating "the grim reaper" to "the vicious rapist". I am 100% not joking.

[@DavidGibbs-hf4vf]

I’m so looking this up 😂😂

[@Mystemo]

@DavidGibbs-hf4vf every PAL manual should have it in there, though you of course need to be able to read Swedish ^^

[@ironhell813]

Lol the grimy raper. Not a surprise that Sweden was metoo before it was a thing…

[@Adamtendo_player_1]

I need to look this up lol.

[@Jorqell]

The C64 version was pretty solid. Funny enough, I deliver newspapers in real life too, although it's less "kid on a bike", more "middle-aged man driving a mail truck in the middle of the night" 😂

[@billkeithchannel]

Gannett canceled the contracts of all of us independent carriers in Erie back in March and decided to have the US Mail deliver the daily paper when the customer gets their mail for the day. I didn't have a day off in 9 years.

[@Simonskilamb]

There's your Paperboy 4 concept sorted! Get a kickstarter going, Id buy that 😂

[@prezidenttrump5171]

Slopes, I'm 32 years old, from the United States, and I've been on KZbin a long time. No, this isn't a dating profile. What I'm trying to say is you're the most reliably enjoyable KZbinr I've found in my life. I love to see trips you take with your beautiful family, your sense of humor is awesome, you don't scream, and you do the great game historical pieces like this. I don't care what people say Slopes, I love you man!

[@DavidGibbs-hf4vf]

Nothing wrong with sharing that love brother 🎉 I hope you’re okay and having a fantastic day ! I’m 32 from wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 uk 🎉

[@platinumpagoda3079]

I always enjoyed paperboy, but something is always deeply unsettling about it. The atmosphere, the architecture, the NPCs, the music, etc. Every port seemed to carry that weirdness.

[@JohnRiggs]

Paperboy was my first regular job when I was 12. I was able to buy my own Sega Genesis (mega drive) with the money I earned.

[@slopesgameroom]

That's awesome. I had a similar experience at my 1st job saving for a PS1. Although mine was working on a farm. Only had 5 houses on my street lol

[@jackkenseng2164]

Paperboy 2 was INSANELY hard, I can vouch. I don't know about the original, but you unlocked additional streets later if you actually survived long enough, and the variety was nice.

[@volvo09]

I HATED paperboy... It was so hard, I always died in like 2 seconds, i just could not get the hang of it. 😂

[@spiderobert]

as a child the only version I had access to was Paperboy II on SNES and I actually really liked it at the time. I didn't know any different, but the humor and challenge was fun for me.

[@Adamtendo_player_1]

You have my sympathy if you had the SNES version of paperboy II, which is so bad and is a case of Genesis doing what Nintendon’t 🤣

[@patrickblakethesaint]

I can ride my bike with no handlebars, no handlebars.

[@devilotx]

Its the feel of the rubber grips that makes paperboy arcade so brilliant, it feels like an old K-Mart BMX.

[@darthwiizius]

I played Paperboy around the time I was old enough to be a paper boy. The reality of working as a 13 year old media delivery agent child labourer in the UK was a lot less glamorous than one would think...

[@PaulaPoundstone-z7u]

hahahahahaaaa youre so funny!!!!!!!

[@mikethetowns]

Paperboy: BMX XXX was a personal favourite of mine.

[@slopesgameroom]

DAMMIT. I FORGOT TO ADD THAT ONE!

[@mikethetowns]

@@slopesgameroom Tis worth an entire video haha, hiyoooo

[@Boco_Corwin]

Ha. Bewbs

[@daschwah]

Sava’s story is that his dad’s co-workers had him ride a bike around the Atari parking lot and recorded it for animation refs. The character itself wasn’t modeled on him, though I did get a laugh out of hearing “SCOTT CHRISTIAN SAVA” in that Slopes baritone, like he’s some historical/iconic figure that people (other than fans of geeky KZbin artists) would recognize.

[@quadzilla3326]

This has quickly become one of my favorite KZbin channels. Keep up the great work

[@slopesgameroom]

Thanks mate. Will do

[@Aragorn7884]

It wasn't until I was older that I knew it being in the Arcade - I always thought it was NES only.

[@freakklomp]

it was also a sega genesis game

[@ironhell813]

I knew it was, all Atari games were. Just never found one in real life.

[@warrenbradford2597]

I do remember playing Paperboy in Midway Arcade Treasures on the original Xbox. The nostalgia I have for it is what inspired me to watch this video.

[@roycesilvester6020]

I actually like Paperboy 64! It's controls are bad, but you can get used to them and the main game can be fun to play, but I could never get good at some of the bonus stages. It's also not a port, it's just a completely new game/another sequel.

[@ironhell813]

Just needed camera lock and the controls wouldn’t have mattered as much

[@fibrodad1354]

On the arcade version, just as you finish the stunt section, there's a white fence and grass. If you aim for the thin strip of grass, he goes out of bounds, you get High score and mega glitches and a free credit sometimes.

[@CorporalWobbly]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who remembers this. I think if you got it just right then it would repeat the stunt section again with lots of graphical glitches. Can't say I remember getting free credit though

[@billkeithchannel]

I remember my buddy and I figuring out that trick too. We saw how that white fence had that gap for the start line of the bonus stage and wondered if we could fit the bike through it. Holy wow what a cool glitch. Tons of free lives with that mega score advance too.

[@backup368]

John Leonard, the the teenager who tried to fight Pepsi in court for a fighter jet in the 90s was also a paperboy.

[@sirflimflam]

LOVED paperboy as a kid. I mostly played the NES version but man. I spent untold hours on that game.

[@christopherchampion5244]

Awesome game breakdown and historical review broseph. I loved this game as a young kid on Nintendo and again on the 360. Was devastated when it went away. Subscribed and liked

[@strain42]

A core memory of mine is having to spend the night at an obscure relative's house and they had a SNES in the living room where I was sleeping so I stayed up all night playing Paperboy because it was the only game I could find.

[@cameron398]

Another great video and as a long time fan...and Florida native I love you wearing the Dolphins hat. Keep it up.

[@slopesgameroom]

Hahaha that's awesome :D thanks so much

[@billcook4768]

Dolphins looking good right now.

[@QixIceni]

Paperboy 2 on the Sega Genesis (MD) is actually a very solid game. I've played it on other systems and it wasn't so great, but it is really good and fun to play on the Genesis.

[@ClarenceBoddicker1130]

Can't tell you how much I love these videos and this channel

[@Gary_P2]

So glad this channel was recommended to me, Great video!

[@hombredesilla]

There are times watching these videos and videos like it where I think ‘that sounds interesting, I should try that’. The clips of Paperboy 64 are the opposite of that feeling. They made my head hurt.

[@rho-starmkl4483]

16:48 That console had TWO ports. The first version was all red & yellow but had sound. That version was intended to be scrapped in favor of the more colorized version, but Spain didn’t get the memo.

[@Dogman2605]

Slope brought up the fact that Scott c sava was the model for paperboy and that made me smile because Scott told his yt shorts and tictok viewers about that fact

[@catriamflockentanz]

The Paperboy on the Thumbnail looks straight out of Disney's Recess...

[@darrellsmith9727]

Always love when a new Slopes Gameroom video gets uploaded. 🤘

[@DMETS519]

@ 10:00. "The game had features that were far too obscure." And then Atari came out with "APB". Obscure video game features apparently reentered the chat.

[@billkeithchannel]

APB was a brilliant game. I played it a lot in the arcade.

[@DMETS519]

@@billkeithchannel Some of these system 2 Atari games with their unique controls are often very hard to replicate on followup console versions. So I ended up buying an actual APB. No regrets.

[@billkeithchannel]

@@DMETS519 All those two monitor games were so hard to port to home consoles. I noticed on his chart that the arcade version of Punch Out was ranked low by gamers, probably because it was a difficult game to master. My friends were really good at the game and if it had not been for them telling me their secrets, I would have never figured it out. I was so unhappy with the controls on all the Centipede/Millipede home versions (including MAME32 with a PC Qtronix trackball mouse) so I bought the arcade version of Millipede. I then bought a Millipede to JAMMA conversion board and put the PCB in my 25" monitor Gal's Panic game. It looked and played really nice on that larger monitor. I also replaced the track ball with the exact replacement one from Happ's Controls (before Suzo bought them) so the response time was immaculate. My copy of Millipede had a monitor PCB that was originally designed for a television. There were big empty gaps where all that circuitry would have been placed. I did some research and found out that at one-point Wells-Gardner got a deal on unfinished boards from a television manufacturer that went out of business and that helped fill in the gap while they designed, and mass produced a better dedicated 15Khz monitor. That redesign went in almost every Williams' Electronics and Bally/Midway games of that era.

[@Se7enBeatleofDoom]

Paperboy video games were made back when kids delivering newspapers was still a widespread job. Not it’s Uber driver dropping off newspapers as a side gig.

[@AaronLevine-t3j]

If even that much anymore. My local stores stopped getting even the Sunday papers for over 2 months now and only one weekday paper if my local Dollar Tree even receive one. I remember my 1st job out of High School I worked at Rite Aid and one of the representatives we had coming in was someone from the local Capital Gazette to count how many papers our store sold so they can figure out if they need to send more or less next week. Now they don't even bother to send anyone.

[@autobotstarscream765]

Grim Reaper, meet Truck-kun!

[@PixelsNcreatureS]

Excellent video. I have a few different versions of PaperBoy and ive never been any good at them 😂

[@JustinCote-tr1lz]

Keep em coming slope!!! Love the videos

[@patrickisme1438]

Great video history, like always.

[@lukehinkle9614]

As a child of the 80s this game made me want to be a paperboy, which I was for three years from the age of 13 to 16 in the 1990s. I'd say I it was traumatic with bullies throwing rocks, dogs biting my arse, and 90 year old women giving me tours of their trailers; aka, mobile homes. I guess that set me up for two tours in Iraq.

[@Digiflower5]

Paperboy a classic, that being said no one really talks about modern paper practices now. This is a long one but its interesting. It's adults who work around 2am with hundreds of papers, with the pay being per paper. Job Steps 1. Take your pallet of papers to your station, and cut them free with their own tools that you need to supply. 2. Manually fold and bag each one of your papers with the plastic bags you had to buy from the owner. 3. Take the hundreds of papers and load them into your own car to deliver out, the weight and the stop and go damages the owners car a ton quickly. Some of these places let you bring your kids making it popular with parents who want to be home during the day. That being said they pretty much hire anyone so keep that in mind, you are fully responsible for your child's safety with that kind of work environment. Some establishments will cut corners. The job will cause physical injury as people do fall from the weather and as an independent contractor you are responsible your own working conditions and insurance, the job does not provide it. Anyways I hope you all found that interesting. Edit: I forgot to mention there are no days off. If you need a day off you need to bring in your own replacement or risk termination.

[@billkeithchannel]

The center and our table became off limits for entry in the spring of 2020 (gee, I wonder what was happening then?) so I got used to just stacking the full bundles on my passenger seat. Most of my customers got the paper inside the storm door so I could just fold it and toss it in and close the door quick. If the paper had ad inserts like Thursday and Sunday I would rubber band it. I would bag the porch toss customers as I walked to their front porch. I figured a way to twist the bag closed so I didn't have to waste a rubber band on them. But I did get quite a lot of people saving bags and bands and return them to me. I also saved a lot of walking by pulling in each driveway as far as I could. I still got in and out of the car 220+ times every morning. I had over 300 people on Sunday. March 2024 Gannett decided to get rid of all of the Erie carriers and use the US Mail to deliver the daily paper instead. I had went 9 years without a day off.

[@Digiflower5]

@@billkeithchannel oh gosh I totally forgot about no holidays or days off. You are responsible for bringing in your own replacement. I hope you are doing well, thanks for sharing.

[@lucasoheyze4597]

That wasn't interesting

[@LBDNytetrayn]

Aww, I was hoping you'd mention the time Paperboy got its very own entire episode of Captain N: The Game Master! XD For real, though, great retrospective!

[@goffik1980]

Never played it on any console or handheld. I played it on my beloved Atari ST. 35 years later, I still can't get that bloody tune out of my head... :p

[@DnBclassictunes]

Imagine owning the arcade now. Superb game. Great memories.

[@mrtree1368]

I grew up with the snes but I had some step brothers who were older that grew up on the nes and I'm glad they showed me this game

[@AcornElectron]

16:20 That yellow and blue port is very familiar 😂

[@M9_Prime]

I love all the Streets of Rage music you use. Makes me want to fire some some Streets of Rage every time I watch your stuff.

[@HarukoPlease]

Man, I completely forgot about paperboy

[@slopesgameroom]

Such a quality series

[@krisfrederick5001]

Special Delivery 🗞

[@jamesdevey2633]

I only played this in the arcade back in the day. However I recently got the NES version and it is very good. Probably my most played NES game this year.

[@jasonjones7461]

No matter what the subject is, you always manage to make a thorough, detailed, and most importantly, INTERESTING video. Funnily enough i actually had the GameBoy version as a kid and i actually loved it, this was at least partially due to the fact that i had never played any other version yet at the time. I now know it is quite the inferior version but i still like it because for me, the GB version WAS the original version 😂. Excellent video!

[@LumiMoonCh]

I really enjoyed playing paperboy on commodore 64. I had no idea what to do, but it was fun.

[@SticksAandstonesBozo]

When I bought paper boy the only access to video games I had was in the jewelry case at Kmart in 1984. They would have 3-4 cartridges in the case and that was it. I dreamt of paper boy for a year before I got my one game for the year …

[@popixel]

I used to be a paper boy. My first job I got paid a whopping $11 every two weeks. My next one I got near $120, I really got a lot of tips around Christmas time as I delivered to old rich people.

[@TheRipdub]

Paperboy is one of the first games I remember playing.

[@NcWcN1]

1:23 he's just a common man, working hard with his hand ♫

[@Adamtendo_player_1]

I only played the Mega Drive version of Paperboy and I really enjoyed it and seeing the arcade game, makes me appreciate the Mega Drive version even more, sadly i had the Game Boy version as a birthday present back in 1993 and I hated it. Anyways great vid as always Daniel.

[@DMETS519]

I always hated the perspective on the Zaxon game. I thought I was lined up fine but ended up crashing into a wall because I was too low. But somehow the playability of the similar perspective in Paperboy was ok.

[@seanmcbay]

The Lynx has a surprisingly good controlling port although the scrolling is a little stuttery. The Genesis probably has the best port overall.

[@Grinnar]

Paperboy was one of my first games ever played. On the NES, mind you.

[@slopesgameroom]

A great conversions

[@patricklacey4946]

Classic , I rented this game Everytime I got a chance back in the day

[@slopesgameroom]

A perfect rentable title

[@featuremusic8354]

Love this. One of my favourite games.

[@JustinNoOriginBand]

I don't recall you mentioning the arcade port SEGA Genesis version. That hurt my heart. I can still deathless run the NES version and it's in my top 10 all time console games. Perfect.

[@ironhell813]

I think he doctored the history to make the original look better. The genny ver was near perfect.

[@harrisonkuykendall1553]

Great episode!

[@V3ntilator]

There is a new game recently released called "Parcel Corps". It's the closest you get to a modern Paperboy perhaps.

[@spencerdokes6056]

Thank you for using the word addictive over the word addicting

[@barryschalkwijk9388]

I'm from 1979 and never ever felt the urge to play paperboy. It always looked so dull to me haha.

[@UnwrittenSpade]

I even love the n64 paperboy which most people hated for some reason. It was fun as hell and dumb but fun

[@CollaateraL]

Love seeing slope in my sub box!

[@AcornElectron]

Sega Supersystem news when? Great job on this classic coverage Dan ❤.

[@kidgruesome407]

THAT MUSIC THOUGH! Especially on the NES.

[@KhamStronk]

"The Paperboy games have truly stood the test of time" Are you stoned?

[@ACatCalledSnow]

I really enjoyed Paperboy, probably far more than I should have, on the Amiga.

[@notmuch_23]

I think the best thing _anybody_ can do at this point to enhance classic paperboy is to update the graphics (to SNES/Genesis quality), and just keep mixing up the core gameplay in different modes like progressive where the route gets one block longer with each perfect delivery, and endless where the route doesn't end, and the game only does when you miss a delivery or run out of lives.

[@TrashQueenAndKing]

Paper 64 doesn't look good but that ad was satisfying

[@RonnieBarzel]

As much as I’d love a New Wave Toys or Quarter Arcade mini-cab of this, I know that custom controller makes it next to impossible.

[@BENULTIMAN2000]

Great Video as always Can you do a Complete History Video on Rampage ????

[@ShanetheFreestyler]

I remember playing the NES version a lot growing up. It was fairly solid if a bit flat graphicwise compared to other NES games from the time. One odd thing that sticks out to me whenever I look at different ports of the game is how the titlescreen of the NES version is near identical to the C64 version with loads of chunky pixels outside a few outlines. The NES could do higher resolution backgrounds than the C64 could, and the Japanese version shows it by redrawing the title screen. This is just a nitpick though as it has no affect on the gameplay, just something I noticed once and can never unsee it.

[@Sylacs]

I forgot how good the graphics on the original arcade looked, so much nicer then the other versions. 🚴

[@Red_Lanterns_Rage]

NES Paperboy was awesome! tough but fair, fun and funny too....

[@murder.simulator]

One thing I noticed and remembered was the scary house on the street. We all knew of one

[@Scimarad]

I had that Amstrad version which actually looked pretty good but I seem to remember it had absolutely no sound! :)

[@billkeithchannel]

I delivered newspapers everyday from March 2015 to March 2024. After my 9 years the local paper owed by Gannett decided to cancel the contracts of all of us independent carriers and use the US Mail to deliver the daily paper instead. I have been "semi-retired" all year now.

[@Aeon2Flux]

I had the TENGEN Sega Genesis port of Paperboy and like many Mega Drive /Genesis ports of arcades always nailed the gameplay feel better than other versions..

[@ironhell813]

The genny really was the arcaders console.

[@danielcharles923]

Nice work 🎉

[@scantronbeats]

Paperboy, Paperboy, All about that paper, boy

[@pholly]

I never even knew this was an Atari game, I always thought of it as an NES game.

[@paulwilkinson2999]

Loved paperboy owned it on CPC 464

[@billkeithchannel]

I absolutely loved Thayer's Quest. I was so disappointed that we never go to see The Far Reaches, the second half of the arcade version of the game. I have the game for the *3DO.* It sucks that the cut scenes from the laserdisc are like 180p.

[@jasonclifford2]

I had the NES Paperboy and the first time I played the Arcade was at CA Extreme... Sooooo much better of a game!

[@Naedlus]

And to think, where I am "paperboys" went missing, because adults took over the role and their vehicles allowed them to edge out the cheaper kids for quantity delivered over time.

[@thecunninlynguist]

i had the GB game and got into it as a kid...but never could finish a week

[@kenwheeler3637]

I used to be a paperboy at one point. I never got to throw a paper through someones window though. 😁

[@mattthomson3727]

The game is on the Nintendo Gameboy as well 😉

[@GABESTA535]

Only version I ever played.

[@akxmedia0]

The Genesis (Mega Drive) port was pretty good for the time. Odd it wasn't mentioned here.

[@bamesbamesbames]

In Bully, you could be a Paperboy!

[@Jamal-bl7yh]

Wouldn't It Be Funny If Like In The 1990's Saban Entertainment or DIC Actually Made a Paperboy cartoon I could see that airing alongside Power Rangers and Where On Earth Is Carmen San Diego and being on rerun cycles on Fox Family to ABC Family In the Early 2000's the ultimate missed opportunity that should've been a thing over 30 Years Ago I'd watch that In spades

[@billcook4768]

Hehe. DIC.

[@johnbutler5546]

Great video, great game

[@AnthonyFlack]

It's called cavalier projection, and it's just as valid as isometric projection from a mathematical "perspective"

[@danboid]

I was one of those kids who paid hard earned real life paperboy money to play paperboy, I just couldn't chuck my papers at grannies y'see. This is one of my fave arcade games ever, not least because of its music and bags of speech. The Atari ST had one of the best home ports but its sound was disappointing with no speech at all. I want to remaster Paperboy for the ST one day and try and squeeze the music and (most of) the speech in. Its graphics were close enough to the arcade. That Golf Land arcade must've been one of the best arcades you could go to in the 80's. I'm a bit jel of those Golf Land kids.

[@BSKustomz]

We had paperboy 2 on the SNES and it was pretty brutal but we played the hell out of it and figured it out I rented paperboy 64 looking forward to it and then played it and it's terrible you are correct

[@eshep71]

I like the new version: Paperman in a Van