Personal Computer Games


Stop The Express

Author: CA
Publisher: Sinclair Research
Machine: Spectrum 48K

 
Published in Personal Computer Games #9

Stop The Express

A swashbuckling adventure this, with graphics rarely equalled on a Spectrum.

You take on the part of very cute-looking secret agent with green suit and a bright yellow mop of hair. Right from the start, when you see yourself lowered down a rope onto the roof of a moving train, you know this is going to be a special mission.

Your aim is to stop the train by reaching the front of it, 20 carriages away. But what a train! Beautifully drawn in blue, red and green trim, it scrolls handsomely across the screen as you move along it, leaping from carriage to carriage.

Stop The Express

No time to enjoy it though, because evil red agents (the KGB, no doubt) are climbing on to the roof behind you and hurling knives at your back. Fortunately, although you have no gun, you're a very athletic person. You can run in both directions, jump up, left and right, and lie down to dodge knives.

You can knock the reds off the train by kicking them, but a much safer (and more entertaining) method is to use the 'snake birds' which fly overhead. Just leap up and catch one, and then release it so that it wriggles along the train devouring anything red in its path.

With some practice, it's possible to get halfway along the train, whereupon stage two begins. This time you're inside the carriages and the red agents are attacking you from the front. You must leap over them, while dodging ghostlike creatures overhead.

Should you manage to reach the front, you simply try again with more reds to avoid.

One nice touch is that after you've perished you can see a complete replay of your mission. Indeed, as I write this, I am happily watching myself reach within two carriages of the front. Makes you truly proud to belong to the CIA.

CA

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