Avoid the Noid
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1989 Sharedata
DOS
Usually games based on movies and TV shows tend to suck major loads of crap. So I didn't really have much hope for a game based on a commercial, especially from the 8 bit era. And as such there is nothing spectacular to be found in Avoid the Noid, however the game is playable once one figures out what the hell is going on.
The object of the game is to deliver a pizza to the top floor penthouse of an apartment building within 30 minutes or less (the old, discontinued 30 minute pizza deal.. those were the days.) Each floor is patrolled by fast moving little Noid people, as well as trap doors, exploding phones, and pizza seeking guided missiles. The Noids painfully jump kick you in the face and stomp all over your Pizza. To compensate you have quite possibly the world's most acrobatic pizza man, who can run, tuck-and-roll, and somersault over various obstacles.
That's really all there is to the game, run to the next door, jump over the Noid, dodge the missile, etc. Not much in the way of puzzle solving except for finding the occasional key (which is usually just there on the ground) and a combination lock which must be solved via answering certain phones (the wrong phones explode.) The game seems overly difficult on your first try until you learn the controls, which it's much easier to play via keyboard. This is one of those games that rely on memorization - the trap doors are always in the same place, the noids and missiles come out in the same patterns, the same phones always explode, etc. Once you learn what's going on there isn't much reason to replay except for maybe to beat your time.
Still the game is quick to pick up and is actually somewhat fun once you learn the sticky controls. I can't really recommend anyone try to hunt this down but if you happen to come across it on an abandonware site it's worth playing with for a few minutes.
Graphics: CGA graphics never looked so bad. For some reason they decided to go with the "hot pink, dull blue" color palette. Animation of the various characters is actually pretty good though, like when the little Noid jump kicks you in the face and stomps all over your pizza.
Sound: PC speaker... blaggh
Gameplay: Simple yet surprisingly addictive gameplay might keep you from turning it off right away.