After forgetting the poor souls trapped in eternal slavery and making the easy break for freedom, we leave Head Over Heels and make a run for No.# 4 in the Your Sinclair Top 100, which in this case is Stop the Express from Sinclair Research Ltd.
Stop the Express arrived on the rubber keyed wonder way back in 1983, from the same software house – Hudson Soft – that brought us Eric and the Floaters, which we played way back at No.#61.
Whilst enjoying a merry, pleasant train journey, you’re informed by the passengers that the train is out of control and nobody can get to the driver due to all the doors being locked! You take it upon yourself to climb up to the roof and slowly work your way towards the drivers cab, however within seconds you come face-to-face with knife wielding saboteurs and all you have to defended yourself is the local birdlife.
To start on the positives about Stop the Express it’s extremely colourful and handles it well, especially for a game from 1983; it is also highly addictive as you find yourself instantly returning to the game once you lose all of your lives, without even noticing you’ve tapped the button. Now to the negatives, I’m really not a fan of this game. Instantly the keys are some of the most awkward I’ve ever used and they are not even redefinable, and it’s also extremely simple. If Stop the Express came out today it would be up in the classification of a mobile game like Flappy Bird, and this also takes it back to its addictive factor. What goads me the most about Stop the Express however is when I look backwards in the Your Sinclair Top 100 and see the games stood behind it, which include such titles as R-Type, Knight Lore and Batty.
Stop the Express quite possibly deserves to be in this chart, but it really doesn’t deserve to be at No.#4.
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Originally published August 24, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
