Stop the Express

RIGHT TRACK FOR SINCLAIR

Memory: 48K
Price: £5.95
Joystick: ZX Interface

The evil Redmen have captured the ITA Express as it hurtles towards an unknown doom. As a special security agent you have to Stop the Express on your 48K Spectrum and round-up the Redmen before the train reaches the border, when they will be out of your jurisdiction and free.

There are two stages. In the first you have to run across the top of the train, jumping each carriage as you reach it. You must be careful, however, to avoid the attempts by the villains to eliminate you with their knives or fists. You should also beware of the low-flying electric pylons above your head.

Despite the near impossibility of your mission you have one friend, the Snakebird, which you can catch as you travel over the carriages and release into the arms of the Redmen, who will suffer the same fate they had planned for you.

Once you have completed stage one you will be able to get inside the train, where Redmen and other assorted nasties will lunge at you, trying to shorten your life.

If you reach the end of the train, the express will start to slow and you will be congratulated on your efficiency as an agent. Then you are promptly dumped on top of the train again to run the gauntlet with more Redmen in the next round.

Stop the Express is well on its way to being a classic game. The idea is original and the graphics are of cartoon quality. It is also difficult enough to be addictive and, even when you have discovered the second level, you will want to keep playing.

Sinclair Research only occasionally releases a piece of software which establishes itself as an industry standard. This is one of those occasions.

A cartoon-style arcade game with an unusual plot. The player is a secret agent who must stop a train before it reaches the country of the red men who have hijacked it. The special agent can slow the train by running across the top of the carriages , entering the express and running down to the engine where the brakes can be applied. On the way the red men with their deadly guns must be avoided.

Stop the Express was launched in the spring 1984. It has set a new standard for graphics on the Spectrum.

Position 46/50

SOFTWARE SCENE

While some software houses are taking the Spectrum to its limits and beyond others doggedly continue to churn out ever more diabolical pieces of programmed junk. John Gilbert present a personal pick of the bunch, and Chris Bourne take an irreverent look at the dwindling ZX-81 software scene. Their talents are combinedd in listing the Top Ten Turkeys of 1984. Let the reader be warned.

SPECTRUM SOFTWARE

A cynic may argue that development within the software market in 1984 was non-existent. The same type of game appeared as those which took the lead in 1983, the most popular being of the arcade variety. The programs were written in the same style and to please the same type of customers.

That is only a superficial view, however, and if you look at the games market as a whole, dividing it up into sectors such as strategy, arcade and adventure, you will see that substantial and sophisticated changes have taken place. Despite what some pundits have said you will find that the world of computer games is still buzzing with life.

£5.95
Sinclair

In Stop the Express the evil Redmen have captured the ITA Express as it hurtles towards an unknown doom. As a special security agent you have to round up the Redmen before the train reaches the border, when they will be out of your jurisdiction and free.

There are two stages. In the first you have to run across the top of the train, jumping each carriage as you reach it. You must be careful, however, to avoid the attempts by the villains to eliminate you with their knives or fists. You should also beware of the low-flying electric pylons above your head.

Despite the near impossibility of your mission you have one friend, the Snakebird, which you can catch as you travel over the carriages and release into the arms of the Redmen, who will suffer the same fate they had planned for you.

Once you have completed stage one you will be able to get inside the train, where Redmen and other assorted nasties will lunge at you, trying to shorten your life.

If you reach the end of the train, the express will start to slow and you will be congratulated on your efficiency as an agent. Then you are promptly dumped on top of the train again to run the gauntlet with more Redmen in the next round.

Stop the Express is well on its way to being a classic game. The idea is original and the graphics are of cartoon quality. It is also difficult enough to be addictive and, even when you have discovered the second level, you will want to keep playing.