We have been neglecting our duties as guardians of extreme sports games. Parcel Corps is a light-hearted bike courier simulation set in a colorful totalitarian regime where the police don’t like things to be delivered on time or not at all. Perhaps that’s why the game, which was supposed to hit Steam tomorrow, has been delayed to an unspecified date. Never mind, half the news we write is about release delays. At least the developers announced a delay in a fun and thematically appropriate way.
The announcement of the delay used a jocular term. “Sorry We Didn’t See You” Flyerand the accompanying text says the delay is due to the game’s developers “spending extra time fine-tuning everything to ensure the best launch possible.”
I like the exploit of a recognizable flyer, even if seeing these things in real life sends me into an apoplectic cycle of rage. (I was right here, Evri nee Hermes, you didn’t even knock!) This is in keeping with the game’s plot, in which you ride a bike for one of three profit-hungry courier companies, earning a “modest wage” and performing stunts to outrun the police and shorten your delivery time. There’s a demo on Steam pageif any of this sounds very Jet-Set-Radio-ly to you.
Developer Billy Goat Entertainment is based in Northern Ireland and previously created the satirical sci-fi adventure Her Majesty’s Spiffing. I have to admit to a slight sense of bias here, as I, too, am a scarred survivor of the Northern Irish wasteland and it feels all heated and fuzzy when professional games studios spring up from the twisted bricks of Belfast. Especially when things from our – ahem – bizarre history finds its way into games. For example, the police vehicles in Parcel Corps seem to be closely modeled on militarized Tangi Land Rovers that the cops still drive by here sometimes. Ah, home sweet home.
