The player controls Road Runner, who is chased by Wile E. Coyote. In order to escape, Road Runner runs endlessly to the left. While avoiding Wile E. Coyote, the player must pick up bird seeds on the street, avoid obstacles like cars, and get through mazes. Most of the time Wile E. Coyote will just run after the Road Runner, but he occasionally uses tools like rockets, roller skates, and pogo sticks.
Development
Originally, the game was set to be released as a LaserDisc game, with the game's graphics being overlaid over video footage showing the road and background scenery. Whenever the player managed to outwit the Coyote - such as tricking him into running off a cliff - a sequence from one of the original Road Runner shorts showing that exact situation would be played.
The game was going to be released in 1984, but Atari decided to cancel the game. In 1985, the game was released by Atari Games as a traditional video game. In the released game, all of the original LaserDisc-based elements were either removed or replaced with computer-generated graphics.
One prototype cabinet of this original LaserDisc version is known to still exist, and occasionally appears at arcade collector's conventions such as California Extreme.
Like other NES games released by Tengen, Road Runner was unlicensed by Nintendo itself, released as an unlicensed cartridge avoiding Nintendo's protections. It was planning on to be released in a licensed version by Mindscape, but it was scrapped in the fall of 1989.
Reception
The game was reviewed in 1988 in Dragon #140 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 3 out of 5 stars.[2]
The game went to number 2 in the UK sales charts, behind Exolon.[3]
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