Parcel Corps transforms the thankless graft of an city courier into an excessive sport with a aptitude of Loopy Taxi and a streak of satirical British humour. Battling in opposition to the clock, gamers are tasked with whisking every kind of cargo throughout maze-like city sandboxes, interacting with a vibrant solid of shoppers seeking to pedal their wares.
Oh sure, there’s loads of pedalling in Parcel Corps. The sport’s stand-out function is its use of bicycles as the one mode of transport which immediately makes journey extra dynamic. Not solely can gamers weave via the visitors and backstreets, they’ll additionally carry out a easy but efficient repertoire of tips akin to grinds, wall-rides, slides, and wheelies. On this respect, the sport takes on a Tony Hawk’s Professional Skater dimension that seamlessly enhances its beat-the-clock arcade motion.
With that mentioned, I wasn’t all too enthused by the opening half an hour. Parcel Corps needs to ease you in with a step-by-step tutorial that has you performing fundamental manoeuvres round visitors cones earlier than the coaching wheels can come off. These first few deliveries can even really feel sluggish as you familiarize yourself with not simply the bicycle dealing with, but in addition juggling a cell phone.
Nonetheless, after exploring the sport’s first of a number of open-world areas and signing up a handful of shoppers, all the pieces begins to click on into place. With mastery, the bike dealing with will go from feeling sluggish and clumsy to quick and fluid as you chain collectively parkour-like stunts to entry shortcuts whereas usually getting a really feel to your environment.
Supply Rush occasions are the place your abilities are put to the take a look at. That is the place Parcel Corps is at its most Loopy Taxi-like, difficult gamers to finish as many deliveries because the clock counts down, giving them freedom to decide on which jobs to finish. It will probably typically really feel like your complete recreation was constructed round this core recreation mode – your efficiency in Supply Rush will impression your story progress and the way rapidly you progress onto the following map.
Talking of story, developer Billy Goat Leisure makes use of dwell motion cutscenes and comical caricatures to poke enjoyable at actual world points akin to company greed and the exploitative gig financial system within the UK. There’s additionally an anti-authoritian streak all through. As a courier, you possibly can align with mask-wearing anarchists by vandalising surveillance gear which, in flip, comes with its personal rewards by unlocking useful shortcuts.
Repetition is one other antagonist you’ll have to face off in opposition to. As you progress from zone to zone, a predictable sample emerges during which gamers should enroll a handful of shoppers after which grind out Supply Rush XP, repeating the method till your boss is blissful so that you can transfer on, solely to undergo the identical loop once more.
Finicky controls current one other bugbear, significantly when making an attempt to make use of the in-game telephone. You may basically multitask whereas using, although the button inputs and map function could be irritating to make use of even when the idea is revolutionary. There are different components of the sport that don’t really feel nicely executed. All that onerous earned cash you amass can solely be spent buying beauty upgrades and though there’s on-line multiplayer, it feels superfluous with launch day matchmaking occasions being a real take a look at of persistence.