Always played the Commodore 64 version but I do not remember it playing that bad.

Tough choice here. Personally I'd rate the Spectrum version the lowest because the monochrome look really isn't very pleasant. There is a lot of detail, but it's hard to make out in the sea of black and blue.

The Amstrad version looks nice, it even scrolls pretty well, but the designers really made a badd choice when they decided on the sprite size in relation to the visible area. I know that problem very well from the Lynx; the Lynx has one big issue for me compared to other handhelds, it's resolution is even lower than GameBoy. This leads to you just seeing less of your surrounding when you use sprites of the same size as on GB or GG.
On the Amstrad it's similar: The devs decided to make sprites and houses big and detailed, but that leaves little room to see what's ahead. In such a case it is better to make sprites and everything smaller to help the overview; playability has to come before graphics.

The C64 version has the usual ugly colors, but it has a very good overview, smooth scrolling and very nice music. So in this case, despite its ugliness I give my seal of approval to the C64 version.

And again, the Lynx port beats all three.

And again, the Lynx port beats all three.

Amen brother!!!!

Interesting find:

There were two completely different CPC versions released. Spain got a port of the Speccy version instead of the one in the video; not nearly as pretty to look at, but presumably a bit more playable thanks to a better view.

Interesting find:

There were two completely different CPC versions released. Spain got a port of the Speccy version instead of the one in the video; not nearly as pretty to look at, but presumably a bit more playable thanks to a better view.

That is interesting! I wonder why they did that.

The Encore budget release on Speccy, C64+CPC pulled in a full-on 5 pints score in ACE's budget round up.

🙂 Slight edit there as looked as if i'd had too many pints, said it got 6, scoring only went upto 5, lol.

Richard Leadbetter reviewing Lynx version in C+VG

Overall 67%:Looks good, simply is'nt fun to play.

Now, depending on your viewpoint, the C64 version was either decent enough, good or not much cop, but C+VG review at the time, made it out to be something of an audio/visual bench mark for the C64, it was a C+VG Hit, scores were:

Graphics 10.
Sound 9.
Value 10.
Playability 10.

Now those who did like it......seriousily, was it that good?.Been years since i played it, it was fun, but 10/10?.

The graphics are horrid so no way are they a 10 for a start.

It kinda backs up the claims that around that era, mags were doing a tit-for-tat scoring again'st rival mags, so if mag A gave a game a high score, mag B would slag it and vice versa.

Looking up the Zzap 64 review for C64 Paperboy we see:

Graphics 48%
Sound 79%
Hookability 63%
Lastability 40%
VFM 35%

Overall 44%

Looking at the screen shots, it looks rough!.Blocky sprites, poor backdrops, colour scheme not fantastic.There were far better looking C64 games around when it was released.Could this be one of the fabled C+VG reviews done on basis of a press release/blurb and shots on packaging?.