Postman Pat Longplay (C64) [50 FPS]

Developed and published by Alternative Software in 1989

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Those of you who were growing up in Britain during the 1980's surely must be familiar with stop-motion animated cartoon show featuring Postman Pat and Jess, his black and white cat! Pat is a local postman in the employ of the Royal Mail and resident of Greendale, a fictional village somewhere between Yorkshire and Cumbria.

The objective of the game is to help Pat make it through the working day, delivering parcels and letters to the residents of Greendale. The world is viewed from a top-down perspective and the player is tasked with navigating Pat's delivery van through tight country lanes, avoiding obstacles and various hazards.

From the start, Pat must find his way to the local Post Office where Mrs. Goggins, the local post mistress, will issue Pat with deliveries to make. These involve taking a parcel to one of Greendale's residents, dropping it off, then returning to the Post Office for a nice, hot cuppa. All of this must be done against the clock, with a time limit of 60 minutes before the game ends.

Occasionally, Pat will be asked to run an errand by the person he's handed the parcel to. This might involve helping Peter Fogg round up his sheep, or collecting Miss Hubbard's prescription from the local doctor (I can imagine what out Postman's response might be if I asked him to go and pick up my prescription...).

As well as delivering parcels, Pat will also need to deliver a number of letters to houses in the village. A building waiting for a mail delivery is signified by a flashing letter outside, and Pat, who must have some kind of special mail-spewing cannon fitted to the sides of his vehicle, must fire the letter into the building's letter box as he drives past. Miss, and poor old Pat will have to get out and reclaim the letter.

For those of you who played this game back in the day, I'm certain that the driving controls are probably what you remember the most, mostly because they are so incredibly frustrating!

Firstly, Pat's van can only turn at 90 degree angles, which makes navigation pretty tricky, especially since the roads are pretty narrow to begin with. It's also impossible to change direction once you've already initiated a turn; turn left and you can't change your mind and decide to go right instead. To make things even harder, the joystick direction to accelerate/reverse changes relative to the direction that the van is facing. When not facing in the same direction, it will try to turn the van around to face the direction you just pressed. For some reason, this control scheme just seems to contradict what your hand-eye coordination expects and you'll spend the first 30 minutes or so crashing into things and swearing (loudly). Eventually, the control scheme does start to "click" and you might even be able to drive 2 or possibly even 3 screens before pile-driving the van into a wall.

As you might expect, colliding with a building or coming off the road will result in Pat writing off his van and having to get a new one from the garage. With only 2 spare vans, this makes things pretty difficult, especially with so many deliveries to make.

The other thing to bear in mind is that there is no in-game map to help you navigate (sat nav wasn't even a thing when this was released). This means you'll need to learn the roads and where each of the residents live if you're to complete all your deliveries before time runs out.

If you can get to grips with the wretched driving controls then you might actually enjoy the game for the short amount of time that it lasts. Complete all deliveries and the game simply loops, forcing Pat back on the road to make endless deliveries in some kind of Hellish, postal purgatory.

The game features acceptable graphics and presentation throughout. The way Pat's van appears to wobble from side to side is a nice touch and the artwork tries to capture some of the essence of a small Yorkshire village in the Dales. However, none of the Greendale residents appear to have any facial features whatsoever, being little more than strange pink, putty-faced humanoids with arms and legs.

The game is devoid of sounds effects, but it does feature an accurate rendition of the TV show's theme tune (courtesy of Barry Leitch); you can't help but hum along whilst you play.

Although it's by no means a masterpiece, I think that Postman Pat is actually quite a decent budget title, especially for young children (the only swearing and violence will come from the player themselves when trying to steer the bloody van!). For the couple of quid that this would have cost back in the day, it's not a bad way to spend a rainy afternoon.
#retrogaming