Space hero, cowboy, mythic warrior...all pale in comparison to Paperboy, the video game that allowed the player to work his own virtual paper route. The game might have been boring if it wasn't for the fact that the main character wielded newspapers like lethal weapons, just perfect for launching through a glass window.

Real paperboys got some of their own back with this game and non-paperboys enjoyed the random mayhem that they could create up and down suburban streets.

The player earned points by being a good paperboy and delivering the papers safely and on target, right in front of each subscriber's house. But not everyone was a paying customer and those houses were designated by muted colors, making them fair game for the paperboy and deadly morning edition.

The game actually awarded bonus points to the player for wreaking as much havoc as possible to non-subscriber homes: you could bust out windows, chip the paint on the front door, knock over the gravestones in the front yard (gravestones being standard lawn decorations in suburbia) and scare the living daylights out of the residents.

Sometimes battered non-subscribers signed up for service and their homes became off limits to the Paperboy. If you were to make a mistake and knock over a customer's azaleas, you lost points and risked getting fired. Other than the large stationary targets, the player could take aim at cars, trash cans, innocent kids and adults unlucky enough to populate that particular paper route.

At the end of the street, the Paperboy could prove his bike skills by riding a BMX dirt track and hitting bullseyes with newspapers. All points were tabulated at the end of the game and Paperboy returned the next day to try and beat his score. The game's main attraction was the handlebars control mounted on the console that controlled speed (pushing the bars forward) and braking (pulling back). Any Nervous Nellies who tried to go too slow got chased down by a swarm of angry bees.