Road Runners Death Valley Rally, known in Japan as Looney Tunes: Road Runner vs. Wile E. Coyote and in Europe as Looney Tunes: Road Runner, is a video game released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It is based on the Looney Tunes characters Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner.\r
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The player controls Road Runner, who is to be guided across a series of levels to cross the finish mark, while avoiding Coyote and his contraptions. Coyote has a unique method of ambush for every level, ranging from the Acme BatMan outfit to explosives, and for every level there is a cutscene of the contraption failing once the player crosses the finish mark. After completing the three main levels in an episode, the Road Runner has to battle Coyote, who is armed with a more advanced contraption.\r
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Road Runner has a series of control movements useful to beating the game. As per usual in platform games, Road Runner can jump and run (with the B button and control pad, respectively). The first essential move is boosting (with the Y button), where Road Runner can run much faster as so he can easily scale walls or hills without needing to build up momentum. The boost also acts as an invincibility, being able to destroy enemies and resist damage from Coyote. However, this boost quickly depletes the Energy Meter (if empty, the player could no longer use boosts). The next essential move is the A button, which causes Road Runner to continuously peck, whereas he can eat Bird Seed to refill his energy, or simply attack. Although they serve no gameplay use, the L button makes Road Runner say beep-beep!, and the R button makes him stick out his tongue. Holding Up and the L button simultaneously makes him jump and say beep-beep!.\r
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The game offers the player several items to aid in the game.\r
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1-Up - Appearing as a bouncing Road Runner head, awards the player an extra life.\r
500-Point icon - Awards the player 500 points upon collection.\r
Bird Seed - Used to replenish the Energy meter.\r
Clock - Stops time and freezes all enemies in their tracks.\r
Flag - Touching a flag awards points and adds to the Flag Bonus at the end of a level; collecting enough flags throughout the game will earn the player a continue. Flags are also used as checkpoints: if the player were to lose a life at any point in the level, he could resume at the last flag he touched. The flags come in four colors: yellow, green, red, and purple.\r
Heart - Restores the Road Runners health.\r
Shield - Makes Road Runner invulnerable to damage for a short period of time.\r
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Destroying enemies and touching 500-Point icons is the easiest way to earn points, but the most efficient is touching flags that are peppered in various areas throughout the level. Some flags are in plain sight, others are out of reach and require skill to run and jump to them. At the end of a level, the player earns three bonuses: Flag Bonus (counts every flag touched), Time Bonus (time left on the Timer), and Energy Bonus (how much energy remaining in the Energy Meter). In addition, the player is awarded an extra life for every 50,000 points collected and a Continue for every 100,000 points.\r
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All the boss levels begin with Coyote holding up a blueprint of his new mechanism to the screen, displaying how it works, and hints to its weakpoints (labeled with big exclamation marks). It is then the job of the player to disarm and destroy the contraption. After the machine is destroyed, Coyote is pummeled by its destruction and then an Opera Singer walks in, clears her throat and begins to sing. However, Coyote holds up a sign reading Not Yet. He is then finished off by more destruction. Road Runner then moves onto the next episode.\r
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The game offers five episodes (or worlds), each containing three levels and a boss level, where Coyote is in control of a larger mechanism (described here). In each episode, Wile E. and the Road Runner were given different latin names.
