Parcel Corps

Parcel Corps comes from small developer Billy Goat Entertainment in Belfast, which "... specialises in crafting jovial, light-hearted, comedic experiences..." - and that's exactly the energy Parcel Corps brings.

In Parcel Corps, you have to make a career as a bike messenger in the city of New Island - you've ditched the 9-5 job and now work as a freelance bike courier. You've been assigned to one of the three major courier companies operating in the city and the game has a number of sharp comments on big business and the money men behind it - something that the gaming industry in particular has noticed in the last few years.

New Island is filled with small businesses in need of courier services and by completing an initial challenge for them, which can be anything from delivering an item on time, putting up flyers around the city, to smashing a series of police drones that interfere with the signal of the local Eiffel Records radio station. If you pass these initial challenges, they will install your app on their phone so they can submit more jobs.

Business is good. Delivering parcels around the city, grinding on railings and walls, sliding under parked lorries, beneath fallen trees and around corners, and driving on rear wheels, all while delivering everything from steroids for a bodybuilder, pizza from the local Face Pizza takeaway, to completely unassembled furniture from Idea, which includes exactly 95% of all the parts you need in the package.

There are different requirements for different deliveries. For example, the deliveries from Idea must not break and the parcels from the Petal Pusher flower shop smell so strongly that you have to stay above a certain speed to avoid being overwhelmed by the nasty odour. You build good relationships with local businesses by delivering their parcels - and the better your relationships, the better your chances are in the so-called Delivery Rush events, which are a kind of boss fight if you will. In true Crazy Taxi style, you have to deliver as many parcels as possible, in the order you want, within the time frame and if you succeed, you level up and thus continuously unlock the game's eight areas.

Parcel Corps is a nostalgic blast from the arcades of the 1990s, where simple gameplay takes centre stage and there is little variation and development along the way. The delivery requirements from customers are constantly changing (although some of them are also recycled) and the environment naturally changes when you move to a new neighbourhood, presenting new challenges in terms of getting around quickly: for example, the police will show up and make things a bit more difficult and some neighbourhoods are very vertical, but the bottom line is always to deliver parcels - and deliver them quickly.

The money you earn from delivering parcels can be spent on upgrading your bike, but only with cosmetic items. It's a shame that you can't upgrade your bike so that, for example, it would be easier to handle, take sharper turns or go faster. Because it's just cosmetic stuff you can buy, the value of the money you earn starts to diminish over time and becomes secondary.

If you want a break from the delivery tasks, you can always explore the city and hunt for those police drones and surveillance cameras, or you can engage in online multiplayer where you compete against other players to deliver the parcels the fastest.

The graphics are on the simple side. They have a unique cartoonish style and are clearly inspired by Jet Set Radio, with their own flair. Unfortunately, there are performance issues, as everything runs somewhat unevenly, which is especially noticeable in the beginning as you get used to it. Everything just runs in strange jerks. It's not pretty and the game could do with some optimisation.

Parcel Corps is an entertaining little blast from the arcades of the 1990s (if anyone remembers them) and it works best in smaller portions as it's not particularly varied. Progress through the game is perhaps a little too slow and it takes between 15-20 hours to complete and that's almost too long for a game of this type.

Billy Goat has some work to do to optimise the game, because it simply doesn't run well enough, especially when you consider how simple the graphics really are - and the uneven graphics are borderline annoying for the game. You get used to it and after a slightly sluggish start, the game opens up and becomes good, light entertainment between the more heavy and demanding games this autumn.