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In Loony Loco, the evil baron will stop at nothing to destroy the train. You play the part of the hero who must outwit the enemy and apply the brakes. That little story is used by Kansas to link together four activities, all with a railway flavour.

In the first activity you drive an engine along a track with the scenery scrolling in the background. To make life difficult for you, airships and planes keep flying over and dropping bombs. A well directed puff of smoke is required to prevent these from causing a disaster. Also causing problems are runaway trucks. These can be avoided by firing a harpoon at them or by switching tracks at the numerous points along the way.

When you reach your destination you progress to the next part of the game. In this you are running along on the top of the carriages. Not only do you have to leap smartly from coach to coach, but you must also jump over the balls which are rolling along, and duck under the arrows that are fired at you.

Your aim is to reach the buffet car to gain access to screen three. Once in the buffet car you must catch the cups and saucers that are rolling along conveyors. The kindly railway management will allow you to drop a maximum of three while trying to catch the required forty.

Screen four is quite different from the others in that it is a logic problem, requiring you to set the eight switches to put the train's brakes on. The trouble is that you can only move switch eight if the other seven are correctly set and so on.

You are allowed 300 moves, and at first you'll need them. I think the lowest possible number of moves is 170.

Loony Loco is the best program I have seen from Kansas City Systems. Screens one and two are fast and furious arcade action with good smooth graphics and useful sound effects. Screen three is the weakest because the cups come in a soon predictable set pattern. The fourth screen is great fun to crack, but once learned it is no problem.

You can start the game on the screen of your choice. Overall it is a first-rate package and highly recommended.

Rog Frost