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In the mid 80's, there were, broadly, two types of game for sale. The £10 'professional' release, and the £2 'budget' release, and reviewers tended to go easier on the budget releases. A common sentiment you'd find them express was, "Well, it's not brilliant and you won't be playing this forever, but then it doesn't cost a lot more than a blank tape, so I can't be too critical". Last Train To Tranz-Central, if it were released in this time period, would be a budget game. It's a flick-screen left-to-right platformer in which you can move left, right, up and down but in which you cannot jump.

The scenario, such as it is, is that you are aboard a number of trains. Their destinations are exotic, Mu-Mu Land and Planet Zalaga for example (a nod to Eighties music and game culture there!), but the game itself is fairly standard platform fare. In fact, the only illusion of movement is provided by the 'scrolling' borders of the playing area. To be fair, this effect works well, but it would sure be beaten by the odd bump in the tracks which jittered the playing area or some such. Most of the time you'll be concentrating on the game itself and won't appreciate it.

Anyway, you have a number of 'carriages' to conquer to reach the front of the train, in which you're tasked with dealing with what can only be described as a giant skeleton head which flies around. Getting through a carriage is mostly about positioning your adventurer in such a way that he can either avoiding the patrolling nasties, or pick them off with his gun. Beware though - some of the carriages have teleporters in the middle of the screen and, if you pick off a bad guy in these rooms, another bad guy immediately teleports in to replace him. That's bad news for you if you score a direct hit whilst standing in front of the teleporter!

The game is in two parts, which is an interesting touch. Quantum Sheep has released the first part as a free-to-play download, whilst asking £1.99 for the second part (over at itch.co). I found the first part to be much easier than the second, with Quantum Sheep obviously thinking paying customers deserve a much tougher challenge than freeloaders.

Both parts are extremely playable, with the gameplay mechanics relying on solving a puzzle with both logical thought and a bit of arcade skill. Indeed, considering each carriage takes place in an area roughly half the height of the Spectrum's screen, it's quite incredible just how many different layouts of puzzle Quantum has squeezed in. Perhaps the most frustrating baddies to outwit are the 'lightning barriers' which tend to 'get' you as you tiptoe up to them but when you are still some distance away. Another frustrating inclusion is that, if you lose all of your lives, you're sent back to the very beginning of the first train of the game. If you make it as far as the later trains, and are faced with a particularly difficult carriage to cross, it's not uncommon to lose all your five lives as you try to work out how to cross it. Having to replay twenty minutes or so to reach it again isn't really tempting, and the game seems to acknowledge as much by giving you a game over message that reads "Time for a nice cup of tea"...!

Last Train is a fun, zippy little game. It's not particularly exciting or ground-breaking but the 128K version has some nice AY music, the graphics are fair and it's very playable. At £1.99 it's well worth getting as a download as you're bound to get at least a few hours' worth of enjoyment out of it (and you can always use an emulator Save State to relieve the frustration of having to restart all the way from the beginning when you do get killed). Bitmapsoft's physical release of it however (which includes both parts on opposite sites of the cassette), at £10, is overpriced. Not because the quality of the physical release is not top notch, but rather because the game was clearly written for the budget market. It's just simply not in the same league as something like Ringo or Aliens: Neoplasma.

I'll tell you something that might just have got it there though - if the AY music included was a rendition of the KLF's Last Train To Tranz-Central (which the game is clearly inspired by), or a few samples of "KLF! Ah-ha-ha, ah-ha-ha ah-ha!" Oh well, I can dream...