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Once upon a time people used to buy clockwork Hornby trains to while away their evenings. Then, just as they were getting bored with winding them up, along came the sleek electric models.

Now engine-lovers everywhere can return to the age of steam with the most delightful railway entertainment yet: Loco.

The hero of this new, computer-generated drama is a stunningly beautiful, steam-powered locomotive. The moment it begins rolling forward. pistons pumping, you're guaranteed to fall in love with it.

You'll also be heart-broken when, a few seconds later it gets blown up. Yes, your loco is under attack. Biplanes, zeppelins and track-cars are out to destroy it. You must use puffs of smoke and spurts of steam to blow them out of the sky or off the rails.

The action is displayed using an attractive split-screen format. The bottom half of the screen shows an overhead view of the network of tracks your engine is moving through, the loco being depicted in miniature in the middle.

The top half is a close-up view of your train from the side complete with a colourful, scrolling background. drawn in attractive detail.

The approach of danger is first indicated on the bottom picture. You see planes zooming in on you from behind, or balloons approaching ahead. You can't do anything about them until they appear in close-up. Then you must act quickly. Your loco can destroy them with smoke, but only by puffing It to the correct height. This is varied according to how long you hold down the fire button before releasing.

Should you fail to hit these aircraft, they begin to drop huge bombs which will blow your loco to smithereens.

The skill of the game lies in keeping track of several things at once. While aiming at balloons and aircraft on the top screen, you must also keep an eye out for the head-on approach of handpumped track-cars on the bottom screen. These move quickly and must either be avoided by choosing the right path through the rail network, or blown up by spurts of steam from the front of the hurtling loco.

Meanwhile, to keep your nerves from cracking, your entire journey is accompanied by a virtuoso rendering of part of Jean-Michel Jarre's LP 'Equinox'. Although the ethics of ripping off the work of living musicians is questionable, the result is some of the most attractive computer music ever. It gives the game a bubbling, zestful atmosphere. And the further you are through the piece of music the nearer you are to your goal: which is to steam by a total of eight stations.

Once you've done this, you move up a level and have to cope with squadrons of planes, increasing numbers of airships and more deadly track-cars.

Although the game feels different from anything else on a micro, it isn't in fact any more original than its music.

Loco had a previous existence in the arcades and has simply been copied (with great skill) by programmer Tony Crowther. Still, if you accept that arcade games are a year or two ahead of computer games in quality, Alligata can take credit for being the first company to make this particular conversion.

The only reservation I have is that the game may not offer as much of a long-term challenge as some recent releases.

On the other hand you can get tired of complicated games. This one's simple, dazzlingly entertaining, and immediately lovable. So climb aboard - and go steamin', rollin'... and blastin'!