Parcel Corps Review (PS5) – Par For The Corps

Shove an instrument of shredding you’d find at a skate park in a game, and I’m usually there day one. As much as I hate the term ‘extreme sports’, the easiest basket to put Parcel Corps in would be just that. Think of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater or closer to the spokes, Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX but instead of those ’00s sports stars getting sponsorship deals, X-Games Golds and games named after themselves, they got 5-star reviews for their delivering efficiency.

Developers Billy Goat Entertainment have been a studio consistently increasing their scale with every release. Their previous venture, Supermarket Shriek, was a wild time trial jaunt through shops as you play as both a screaming human and a goat. It was strange in concept, played well in practice and was full of specifically British satirical humour. The humour continues here, albeit in a less than stellar way as works prior.

Keeping the comedy and upping the ante in gameplay, Parcel Corps is a level-based bike courier game where you’ll be manoeuvring through increasingly more intricate architecture, sliding, grinding and wall riding to be the best delivery person there ever was, whilst facing a totalitarian police force harshing your mellow.

It’s probably a comparison made by just about anyone who’s played Parcel Corps, but the game is essentially Crazy Taxi’s time-trial delivery gameplay, meets Jet Set Radio’s more hip-hop-infused elements and finesse — both of which had vibrant worlds to frantically dash across and Parcel Corps is no different. But is it all style over substance? Or does the cool cel-shaded bike courier game have legs? Or wheels… I guess.

Next Day Delivery

When you fire up the game, an FMV news report plays out establishing the world you’ll be cycling in. It’s satirically dystopian, poking fun at a lot of real-life events in the process. You’re then chucked into the world and taught the ropes by a fellow courier, Jess. Pedalling is tied to the ‘X’ button, tapping makes you pedal faster but if you’re holding a direction with the left stick, you won’t have to keep tapping ‘X’. A nice solution to potential hand fatigue as you’ll be pedalling a lot.

‘L2’ and ‘R2’ are the front and rear brakes, with ‘R2’ also acting as a drift for you to do sharper turns. ‘Square’ is your bunny hop/jump and ‘L1’ is your grind. The tutorial is long-winded so take my words as a crash course to save yourself a bit of time. After you learn the ropes of your bike, you then get to grips with your mobile. Your mobile isn’t only where you’ll take jobs, but you’ll also use it as a map, use the camera to sign up companies etc. and then you pick your side.

With three groups to choose from and three people in each, I went with the default Wallary Wheelers. You can change character any time, so it’s no biggie if you ever want to change, but it’s only a cosmetic, there are no stats attached to different characters, unfortunately. I stuck with Jess throughout my gameplay as she just looked the coolest. Your goal in the game is to sign up every business on the level, deliver for them, gain enough notoriety in that level from said deliveries and then move on to the next area.

At Your (Postal) Service

It’s a simple premise that doesn’t broadly elaborate as you continue, but it’s a good enough gameplay loop that kept me going until I got a progression-breaking bug. Thankfully, the moment-to-moment of cycling with style is great. The game feels like a decent blend of physics-based and arcade-y action. It provides a level of difficulty and some map knowledge to get to that peak of looking and feeling cool.

When I was wallriding into a grind, back into another wallride whilst avoiding traffic and drifting into the cops, it felt rewarding. You can’t move the camera or reverse, creating some minor issues to readjust yourself if you mess up; but when the game is asking you to be near-perfect in your riding, those missing features enforce that level of perfectionism.

This is also emphasised by the tight deadlines in delivery, as well as the substantial penalties for falling off your bike. If you do end up bailing, you’re easily eating up 5 seconds of the time you have to recover. It’s frustratingly slow, but I guess that’s the point, to encourage you to play flawlessly.

There are a few ways to skin a parcel, some might be fragile, others may get spoiled if you ride too slow and others might need you to pull out some stunts along your journey. It offers up a little variety but it doesn’t exactly change the gameplay, even with the different requirements. Despite the bulk of the gameplay being a lot of fun, there’s also a lot of stop-and-start as you sign up businesses, breaking up the otherwise seamless transition between jobs.

Flat Tyre

This is because the game’s comedy gets in the way a bit too much. When you scan a QR code to sign up a business, a representative of the store will come out to greet you. It’s a big band of business misfits ready to say hello; like the anxiously efficient guy from Ïdea, the bull-headed gym owner of Bull’s Gym or the guy with an actual pizza for a face from Pizza Face. All of them have long-winded dialogue every time you interact with them, and it just gets boring.

Luckily you can skip the dialogue, but it does that thing where it skips only a partial amount of it, so you’re holding ‘X’ repeatedly to get through it. When you’re not working for the man, you’ll be embroiled in some anti-establishment activities. There are some security drones hiding around the levels that you can destroy, and if you take out enough of them you’ll be approached by a hacking group.

This adds a couple of new elements to the gameplay like posting up flyers or hacking security systems to take down the man. It adds a neat little addition to the already pretty great cycling gameplay, but it doesn’t add much to the overall presentation. I got to 12 hours before the game bugged out, so I couldn’t tell you if it alters an ending or not, but it’s just enough variety to alternate objectives if you get bored doing the one thing. There are also a couple of minigames like a Pokémon Go thing for Leprachauns or Snake on your phone, but they feel a little out of place.

Spokes-person

I had a slight impression that maybe performing tricks would be a more crucial part, but there only a few to perform with different ways of pressing ‘square’. You can whip around your bike, spin the handlebars or say screw it and let go completely before returning. I wish there was more variety in this aspect, something to keep that cool momentum going as I parkour on two wheels across the level, but alas that’s just about it.

You can play in the levels amongst other players if you go into the bike store, but it’s kind of how NPCs in Skate. would whizz past you doing their own stunts. In that bike store, you can also customise your bike from a handful and slightly lacklustre options. You have an RBG chart to colour an extensive list of your bikes parts, but the parts themselves aren’t very varied or exciting.

It’s a shame, there’s something at the core of Parcel Corps that is fundamentally a great loop to get lost in. However, every aspect outside of the raw gameplay just doesn’t feel as well thought out but rather a necessity to justify the asking price. This doesn’t include the visuals though, as the game looks great — when it’s not glitching — and the music has a certain Flying Lotus-like quality. Upbeat, bass-centric electronic jazz fusion that sounds like something Thundercat would jam to himself.

Overall, I did have quite a bit of fun with Parcel Corps and some of it does come down to personal taste at the end of the day e.g. the humour. But I do wish there was more gameplay variety to keep me fully invested because for now, it feels like it’s sticking to the cycle lane.

Parcel Corps is available now on PlayStation 5 (review platform), Xbox Series X|S and PC via Steam.

Developer: Billy Goat Entertainment
Publisher: Secret Mode

Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.

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