Road Runner's Death Valley Rally

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Road Runner's Death Valley Rally
Road Runner's Death Valley Rally Coverart.png
North American box art
Developer(s) ICOM Simulations
Publisher(s) Sunsoft
Producer(s) David Marsh
Programmer(s) Mike Garber
Artist(s) Jeff Troutman
Brian Babendererde
Composer(s) Nu Romantic Productions
Platform(s) Super NES
Release
  • NA: November 1992
  • JP: December 22, 1992
  • EU: September 30, 1993
Genre(s) Platform
Mode(s) Single-player

Road Runner's Death Valley Rally (known in Japan as Looney Tunes: Road Runner vs. Wile E. Coyote and in Europe as Looney Tunes: Road Runner)[ citation needed ] is a 1992 video game developed by ICOM Simulations and published by Sunsoft for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It is based on the Looney Tunes characters Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. [1]

Contents

Gameplay

Road Runner's Death Valley Rally features side-scrolling platform gameplay. [1] The player controls Road Runner, who must avoid being eaten by Wile E. Coyote. [1] The game consists of five different environments, with each one containing three levels and a boss battle. [1] Coyote has a unique method of ambush for every level, ranging from the Acme Batman outfit to explosives, and for every level there is a cutscene of the contraption failing once the player crosses the finish mark.[ citation needed ] After every three levels, Road Runner battles against one of Wile E. Coyote's super weapons in a boss fight. [2]

Road Runner has a series of control movements useful to beating the game, including jumping and running. Road Runner can also peck his beak to kill enemies, and can eat bird seeds that give him a burst of turbo speed, allowing him to scale walls. However, turbo speed can only be used a limited number of times, as it depletes the bird seeds; additional turbo speed is gained by consuming more bird seeds. [2] The boost also acts as an invincibility, being able to destroy enemies and resist damage from Coyote.[ citation needed ] The player can also make Road Runner say "meep-meep!" [2] and make him stick out his tongue, although neither serves a gameplay function.

Reception

Jonathan Davies of Super Play magazine gave the game a 42 percent rating and criticized it for its difficult gameplay, bad collision detection, and lack of a password feature, and wrote that the game is composed of "some absolutely fabulous animated sequences (they really are wonderful) linked by some truly appalling platform levels." [2] Road Runner's Death Valley Rally has an aggregate score of 65.67% based on three reviews on GameRankings. [3]

Entertainment Weekly wrote that "You, as the Road Runner, must escape the clutches of Wile E. Coyote, whose ACME-brand costumes and contraptions have been lovingly reproduced in detail from actual 1950s cartoons." [4] Nintendo Power ranked the game 10# in their Top SNES Games of 1992 writing: "The feeling of the classic cartoon is captured through great character animations, sampled sounds and hilarious defeat scenes for Wile E. Coyote." [5]

Cancelled sequel

A sequel, titled Wile E's Revenge, was in development by Software Creations and was planned as a follow-up to Death Valley Ralley. Unlike the first game, the sequel would allow the user to control Wile E. Coyote as he chases the Road Runner. The game was cancelled because of Sunsoft's bankruptcy in 1995. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Acme Corporation</span> Fictional company featured in Warner Bros. cartoons

The Acme Corporation is a fictional corporation that features prominently in the Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote animated shorts as a running gag. The company manufactures outlandish products that fail or backfire catastrophically at the worst possible times. The name is also used as a generic title in many cartoons, especially those made by Warner Bros. and films, TV series, commercials and comic strips.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner</span> Warner Bros. theatrical cartoon characters

Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner are a duo of cartoon characters from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated cartoons, first appearing in 1949 in the theatrical cartoon short Fast and Furry-ous. In each episode, the cunning, devious and constantly hungry coyote repeatedly attempts to catch and subsequently eat the Road Runner, but is successful in catching the Road Runner on only extremely rare occasions. Instead of his animal instincts, the coyote uses absurdly complex contraptions to try to catch his prey, which comically backfire, with the coyote often getting injured in slapstick fashion. Many of the items for these contrivances are mail-ordered from a variety of companies implied to be part of the Acme Corporation.

<i>Fast and Furry-ous</i> 1949 film

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<i>Beep, Beep</i> (film) 1952 American film

Beep, Beep is a 1952 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies series directed by Chuck Jones. The short was released on May 24, 1952, and stars Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. The cartoon is named after the sound the Road Runner makes, which is also known as "Meep, meep".

<i>Going! Going! Gosh!</i> 1952 American film

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<i>Zipping Along</i> 1953 film

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<i>Stop! Look! And Hasten!</i> 1954 American film

Stop! Look! And Hasten! is a 1954 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon, directed by Chuck Jones. The short was released on August 14, 1954, and stars Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. The title is a play on the railroad crossing safety phrase "stop, look, and listen". The cartoon has been featured in the film The Shining. Danny Torrance and his mother, Wendy Torrance, are seen watching this cartoon.

<i>Ready, Set, Zoom!</i> 1955 film

Ready, Set, Zoom! is a 1955 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Chuck Jones. The short was released on April 30, 1955, and stars Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.

<i>Scrambled Aches</i> 1957 American film

Scrambled Aches is a 1957 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Chuck Jones. The short was released on January 26, 1957, and stars Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. The title is a pun on scrambled eggs.

<i>Whoa, Be-Gone!</i> 1958 American film

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Hot-Rod and Reel! is a 1959 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Chuck Jones. The script was written by Michael Maltese, and the film score was composed by Milt Franklyn.

Run, Run Sweet Roadrunner is a 1965 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Rudy Larriva. The short was released on August 21, 1965, and stars Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.

Zoom at the Top is a 1962 Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Chuck Jones and designer Maurice Noble. The short was released on June 30, 1962, and stars Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.

<i>Desert Demolition</i> 1995 video game

Desert Demolition Starring Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote is a platform video game developed by BlueSky Software and published by Sega for the Sega Genesis. The game was released in North America in February 1995 and in Europe the following month. The game is based around Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, who are the game's player characters and are tasked with playing through a series of levels as they respectively pursue and evade the other. The game was re-released as part of the Sega Mega Hits range in September 1997.

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<i>Hare-Breadth Hurry</i> 1963 film

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<i>Coyote Falls</i> 2010 film

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Wigmore, Glenn. "Road Runner's Death Valley Rally - Overview". AllGame. Archived from the original on November 15, 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Davies, Jonathan (February 1993). "Road Runner's Death Valley Rally review". Super Play . Retrieved February 21, 2015.
  3. ↑ "Road Runner's Death Valley Rally". GameRankings. Archived from the original on September 10, 2015. Retrieved May 10, 2016.
  4. ↑ Strauss, Bob (December 4, 1992). "Holiday video game guide: 1992". EW.com. Retrieved 2021-03-10.
  5. ↑ "Top 10 SNES Games of 1992". Nintendo Power. No. 44. United States. January 1993. p. 120. Retrieved March 9, 2021.
  6. ↑ "Wile E's Revenge (Road Runner 2)". SNES Central.
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