Commodore User


Train Robbers

Author: Mark Patterson
Publisher: Firebird
Machine: Commodore 64/128

 
Published in Commodore User #55

Train Robbers

You're a rootin' tootin' gun totin' desperado named Cactus Pete, down on luck and out of money. But the West is still Wild, so what better way to collect a wedge than by holding up the 9.10 to Dodge City. Chase the train, climb on board and run to the bullion wagon. Collect the keys to the safe, avoid the dogs then open the safe. Grab the swag and leg it over the roof and onto the back of your trusty hoss. And ride off into the sunset a richer man. But then there's the next train...

Three sections to this cheapie. In the first section, you start on horseback cantering alongside the railway waiting for the train to chug into view. Which it does with an obliging chuffy noise. Floor the accelerator, put your horse into fifth gear and draw level with the ladder at the side of the first carriage. Jump from your horse onto the ladder while avoiding on-coming cacti and clib aboard the carriage.

Now you have to get across the roofs of the carriages and make your way along to the bullion coach at the end of the train. The only hazards here are mistimed jumps and tunnels. When a tunnel does loom up you have to press fire to duck, then comes an incredibly uninteresting jaunt through total darkness where only your eyes are visible. When you make it to the end car you have to enter it through the hatch in the roof. This takes you on to section two in which you have to run rings around guard dogs, grab safe keys, open the safe by bumping into it and get out again in one piece. Then all that remains is for you to scarper back along the top of the train onto the getaway horse and spend the rest of your life in relative luxury on a beach in Jamaica.

Train Robbers gave me a taste of what the old budget titles were like. The graphics are well handled but ill-defined, with the main character and horse looking like pieces from Lego's classic collection. The train moves very fast and looks quite good as well. One of the nicest effects is when Cactus Pete hits a bridge at fifty miles an hour. He becomes stuck to the arch of the bridge as the train rushes by beneath him, and then in a true cartoon style plummets to his death.

The sound is a combination of bizarre noises coupled with the puff-puff of the train. Nothing special there. I did have a small problem controlling Pete on the top of the train, because the bridges come so fast and joystick control is a bit finicky. I found it hard to dismiss Train Robbers as a naffo game, but the lack of things to do weigh heavily against it. Really you'd be well advised to put your money towards something more appealing.

Mark Patterson

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