Loco was a landmark game in many respects. I can remember buying this game in a local department store, where they had a small selection of games for the C64, shortly after I purchased my Commodore 64 computer.

The cover was eye catching and certainly stood out from the bland covers on the rest of the rack. On the back of the game package there was a colour screenshot with the text 'outstanding graphics and toe tapping soundtrack'.

Most claims like these which appeared on other games at the time, usually turned out to be wildly exaggerated! In the case of Loco however it could not have been more accurate.

The graphics were bold and colourful which made other games at the time look a little primitive. The music, a rendition of Equinoxe by Jean Michel Jarre was produced by Tony Crowther’s friend Ben Daglish (aka Ben). The music was “toe tapping” to say the least, and it is still one of my favourite 64 soundtracks.

The music for the game was not what Tony had originally intended, as he wanted Rydeen (as confirmed in the Commodore Horizons magazine article), the music that Ocean used on the Daley Thompson's Decathlon loading sequence. I think that Equinoxe was far more suitable and Benn Daglish did a great job with his rendition of this popular Jarre tune.		 LOCO
LOCO Front Cover

LOCO
LOCO by Alligata Software
This is an underrated game, because unlike some of Crowther's later efforts, it fuses some great graphics and sound with above average gameplay. Although at times frustrating to play, it can be quite addictive.

There are five levels to the game with six railway tracks. You can advance a level by collecting five flags by passing five train stations, but you will have to avoid various hazzards like kamikaze handcarts, airships and planes dropping bombs and running out of fuel! There are various fuel dumps that appear on the tracks at certain points throughout a level.

A novel feature is a slow and fast speed option for the train which you can set before you start to play.