Producer: Microsphere
Memory Required: 16K
Recommended Retail Price: £5.95
Language: machine code

If you are an obsessive electric train set freak, or you would like to recapture those golden hours spent on the carpet rubbing rusty rails with glass paper, then fork out the price of this original game from Microsphere - it won't be wasted money if our reviewers' reports are anything to go by.

The Train Game presents you with a fairly complicated layout of railway lines, seen from above. In the simplest level one train chugs about the system and your task is to guide it correctly between the three stations, picking up passengers. There are 25 sets of points which you must look after. These are switched by pressing the appropriate key - all the points are given a letter of the alphabet. If nothing else, this very rapidly teaches you the keyboard layout! Switching a set of points under a train, or not setting them correctly in the first place, will result in a derailment and a loss of life. (You get murdered by irate passengers!) To stop a train in the next station you merely press the appropriate key. On the first level with one train, the key is 1 (blue), the other trains are 2 (red) and 3 (magenta). As time passes the stations fill up with passengers waiting for a train. These are little bowler hats with legs (it's a commuter system, obviously). If they have to wait too long a few of them turn white with rage and are likely to hijack the train with catastrophic results! Your score is directly related to the numbers passengers you manage to collect.

There are several levels of play, with numerous sub-levels between them. Collecting 25 passengers moves you onto the next sub-level. In some cases runaway goods trains (black) appear and must be directed back the way they came to get rid of them.

COMMENTS

Keyboard positions: uses most of the keyboard
Joystick options: impossible and not required
Keyboard play: responsive
Use of colour: very good
Graphics: average to good
Sound: very good, on/off facility
Skill levels: seven (with five sub-levels on 1-6 and nine sub-levels on 7)
Lives: four
Screens: two track layouts

The Train Game is definitely going to appeal to "train buffs". It's good fun to play and on the higher levels requires great concentration if you are to avoid disaster.

It's not often that you get a cassette for review that's such instant fun! Nor a game that when you next look at your watch three hours have passed without your noticing. Like so many very good games, The Train Game is simple in idea but sophisticated in its details. For instance, when you have all three trains running and your eyes are darting everywhere to make sure the points are okay, you then have to worry about the passengers - some may be white with anger at the delays, but the others are coloured like the trains, and they only want that coloured train!

With seven levels of platforms and five sub-levels in each there is plenty of variation. At the top level of play the track layout gets even more complicated as well as the speeds increasing. The graphics are cute and to the point. I liked the sound of chugging trains but if it drives you mad there is a facility for turning it off. Perhaps they should send this tape to British Rail as a training course.

Producer: Microsphere, 16K
£5.95

It's hard to see this game replacing the fun of playing with real electric trainsets, but in an age where even those are out of date, maybe this will be a good substitute. There is a choice of two track layouts to load, and then seven skill levels, with levels one to six having five sub levels and the seventh having nine sub levels. All the points are lettered and you must move the trains round without crashing them and pick up passengers at the stations. Fun to play and plenty of scope for enjoyable disaster!

Producer: Microsphere, 16K
£5.95

This is another game simple in concept and marvellous to play. In fact it's dangerously addictive and should probably be put on the government proscribed drugs lust! A complex railway layout with 24 sets of lettered points, allows you to drive up to three trains around, picking up passengers from three stations. On the higher skill levels runaway goods trains also enter the system and must be redirected to get rid of them. Passengers arrive on the platforms in the colour of the train they want to catch, and get angry if kept waiting too long, turning white with rage! Great sound, nice graphics, maddeningly frustrating to play and simply wonderful! Get one today! Seven skill levels with various sub-levels; rating, very good. Overall CRASH rating 76% M/C.

Producer: Microsphere, 16K
£5.95

This is another game simple in concept and marvellous to play. In fact it's dangerously addictive and should probably be put on the government proscribed drugs list! A complex railway layout with 24 sets of lettered points, allows you to drive up to three trains around, picking up passengers from three stations. On the higher skill levels runaway goods trains also enter the system and must be redirected to get rid of them. Passengers arrive on the platforms in the colour of the train they want to catch, and get angry if kept waiting too long, turning white with rage! Great sound, nice graphics, maddeningly frustrating to play and simply wonderful! Get one today! Seven skill levels with various sub-levels; rating, very good. Overall CRASH rating 76% M/C.

SIGNALMAN'S NIGHTMARE

The Train Game for the 16K Spectrum is any budding signalman's dream. It is also an excellent game which is original, well-thought-out and full of action. The idea is that as the newly-appointed chief operations manager of a railway you must keep the trains running, switching points to avoid derailment and stopping at stations to pick up passengers. That is also how you score.

There are several levels of play-and each has sub-levels - with more and faster trains for the increasingly expert player. Even at the simplest level there is plenty to think about. The graphics are simple and realistic, and the scoring, hazards and bonuses are explained very clearly in the insert. Altogether an absorbing and amusing game which might even make you appreciate British Rail.

The Train Game from Microsphere Computer Services, 72 Rosebeery Road, London N10 2LA costs £5.95.

Last Christmas the Computer was the in thing for dads to buy their children so they could use it as an excuse to get something they wanted for themselves. Twenty years ago Fathers bought train sets for their sons for the same reason. Now, courtesy of Microsphere you can have the best of both worlds. No longer need one sit with ones legs around the neck as a miniature train weaves its way through make believe tunnels under the lounge chair. Your entire layout appears on the TV screen and, indeed, is far more ambitious than the average model railway enthusiast could afford. This excellent simulation gives one the possible choice of two distinctly different layouts. There are 25 switchable points on track A and 19 on track B. Each layout boasts 3 stations and many other novel additions appear as the game progresses.

There are seven levels, so the instructions inform us, but I have yet to reach them all by progression although one can designate which level at the start of the game. The first six levels have five sub-levels and level 7 offers nine sub-levels.

Now if you think the running of a railway is simple then forget it, for it takes considerable skill and practice even to control the running of a single train. One has to avoid wrongly set points and derailments due to changing points with the train on them. The disasters are graphically represented on the screen.

There is also the problem of passengers. You have to pick up 25 passengers before progressing to the next sub-level and each passenger scores points providing they are picked up in time. If, however, you keep them waiting they will turn white with anger and score nothing when picked up. Indeed, if there are angry passengers there when the train arrives then only they are allowed on board and all the others must wait. They may well be white with anger by the time you get to that station again. There is another problem that could well arise. You may allow the station to fill up and then you will find yourself in further trouble.

You are allowed three disasters before the railway looks for another General Manager. A high score column keeps a record of your efforts.

You can stop the whole system while you reflect on what to do next but beware, while nothing is happening your score will begin to decrease. Then there is the odd goods train or express that appears on the system and the only way to get rid of these is to send then from whence they came. Care is needed here for if you inadvertantly direct one of your suburban trains along that line it will disappear for ever.

Every so often a turntable bonus appears but whether you consider this is a bonus is a matter for conjecture.

Realistic train noises accompany the screen image but I found them too repetitive to be enjoyable. Fortunately there is a facility for switching them off.

There are many other problems and eventualities built into the program and these are fully explained in the adequate instructions printed on the cassette inset.

All in all, this is an excellent example of what can be done on even the 16K Spectrum and the program is very addictive. It would be interesting to hear of high scores achieved by others.

There are, of course, drawbacks in even the best programs. The letters that designate the points are difficult to see and it would have been very much better if a simple introductory track had been included, with say eight points, to enable the user to get in some practice. I have made copies of both the tracks on a piece of card and lettered the points clearly. This card is left near the computer for reference.

I would thoroughly recommend this game to all Spectrum owners and suggest that at £5.95 it is very good value for money.