Ride With the Reaper

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At first glance, Ride With the Reaper looks a new take on the classic action game Spy Hunter. But it didn't take me more than a few seconds to realize that this punishingly difficult racer has more in common with Bump 'N' Jump. That's the 37-year-old Data East game where players bumped enemies out of the way and jumped over obstacles. Ride With the Reaper takes that idea and cranks the difficulty up to eleven. It's a speedy and occasionally satisfying racing game that's not for the easily frustrated.Created by Spanish developer Sergi Collado, Ride With the Reaper is a throwback to the 8-bit games we grew up with. You play a guy named Michael who is put in a terrible situation -- his boss wants him to run a job in New York, but his wife has a holiday planned in Philadelphia. This sets up a long and kind of confusing story that involves the driver meeting up with a colorful cast of characters, including a radio disc jockey, an eager florist, a nosey cop and a hitchhiker that warns of a future full of bulldozers. You'll check in with these characters between stages, and they set up an action-packed journey that takes us from Boston to Chicago.Ride With the Reaper is the kind of game where you'll spend a half hour slamming your head against the wall for every minute of pleasure. The levels may be short, but they're tough. They want you to memorize every obstacle through repeated trial and error, all at a breakneck speed that feels almost unfair at first. The goal is simple -- drive as fast as you can and avoid all the obstacles or the reaper will get you. And don't think you can just play it safe and take every level in first gear, because the reaper is always coming from behind.The concept starts out pretty straight-forward, but Sergi expands the idea with each new location. We go from simply dodging street signs and jumping over gaps in the road to shooting missiles at walls and making sharp turns. In fact, there are two types of turns you'll need to learn, both mapped to different buttons. And that's before finding a power-up that will let you warp to different parts of the level. There's a nice variety of obstacles and challenges sprinkled into the 40 stages, including a few actual races and a number of really tough boss fights.I sound positive about Ride With the Reaper, but there were times when I absolutely hated the game. The game isn't necessarily cheap or unfair, but it is frustrating. I say that as a person who tends to like hard games. Perhaps your reflexes are better than mine and you'll finish these courses on the first try, but I have a hunch you'll spend a lot of the time replaying these levels until you've memorized them. While that's easy enough for some of the shorter stages, there are a few that drag on just past that point where things get hazy. Throw in the multiple paths and those damn bulldozers and you have a game meant to be punishing. There's no easy mode here, and I'm perfectly fine with that.Oddly enough, the challenge starts to ease up in the second half of the game. With the exception of an especially difficult race at the end, I found most of the New York and Chicago locations a lot easier than Boston and Philadelphia. I think a lot of this has to do with the types of obstacle they throw at you, but it's also the abilities you earn. Being able to portal past huge gaps in the street makes the speed a bit more manageable, though I wouldn�t call the levels easy.When it comes right down to it, I'm not sure if I enjoyed my time with Ride With the Reaper. There were definitely satisfying moments and I liked overcoming the challenges, but the story isn't great and replaying a few of those stages made me want to throw the controller through the monitor. And yet, I think I would probably recommend it. I'm just not sure who I would recommend it to.