Iron Horse

Iron Horse

Game No.	54
Voting	5.93 points, 15 votes
Developer	John Buckley, Gary Campbell
Publisher	Icon Design Ltd., Konami
Musician	David Whittaker
Release	1987
Platform	Arcade, Amstrad CPC, C64
Genre	Shoot'em Up, H-Scrolling
Gamemode	Single player 2 players (in turns)
Operation
Language

Description[edit | edit source]

Scenario of the Wild Wild West (WWW). Our hero resolves to storm a train today and to casually give the approaching companions his piece of mind. He bravely fights his way forward from carriage to carriage, with drops of sweat oozing from the forehard. When he has finally, afters 6 carriages, reached the end of the level, things will become serious: cowboys in a bad mood, who probably will think of our hero as rather unappealing, seem to get spit out of a cloning machine and thwart the hero. After this stage (to our hero nothing is too difficult) he will be rewarded a considerable tip onto his account and he goes on into the next level. By the way, the "hero" can only carry one weapon. At the beginning of the game he chooses between a pistol (revolver?), whip or the mere fists.

Design[edit | edit source]

It is ok for the date of issue, 1987. The game is pervaded by acceptable scrolling and a graphic which is rather good, altough not too diversified. As soon as you've learned a few tricks, the game is played rather casually, otherwise it is rather difficult. The controls are good, although a few commands need to be given through the keyboard (fire wall, ducking).

Hints[edit | edit source]

Controls at the start of the game:

With 1 / 2 choose the joystick (port2) or keyboard
Then choose the keys for fire wall and ducking
With 1 / 2 choose the number of players (1/2)
Choose main weapon by pressing the fire button (whip, pistol, fist)

Controls in the game:

= steer hero
= fire weapon
Defined key 1 for fire wall in viewing direction
Defined key 2 for ducking (knife, etc. blocking)
Restore to abort a game

Solution[edit | edit source]

Tips:

When you duck, you escape the hostile shots and lassos. But don't wait for too long: the evil boys are really trained and very quickly on the spot. You can also avoid the knives which fly around in the third level by ducking. At the end of the third level stay ducked and shoot to the right.
As weapon I recommend the pistol. The whip is too slow, the fists will give you double points, but then the game is three times as hard.
To be able to send a fire wall you first need to collect a fire bottle.
You can also climb ladders and search your way over the roofs of the waggons.

Cheats[edit | edit source]

Voting[edit | edit source]

Voting of the C64-Wiki users (10=the best vote):
5.93 points at 15 votes (rank 819). You need to be logged in to cast a vote.
C64Games	6	27th August 2010 - "good" - 79 downs
Lemon64	5,33	6th October 2006 - 6 votes

Reviews[edit | edit source]

Z-Mat: "Clearly this is an exceptional game from the best C64 time: 1987. It could get a bit frustrating, a strong stamina (if present) on the other hand secures that you always proceed. But Iron Horse is surely never boring..."

Sledgie: "Iron Horse on the C64 is a remake of the fruit machine arcade game Iron Horse from 1986. The realisation is for the relations of a C64 rather good. But I think it is too hard to play. That's why I give it only 6 out of 10 points."

Guybrush: "There are definitely better games of this genre. Not bad but also not exhilarating. I give 4 points."

FXXS: "I can only agree with Guybrush, especially because in the first level you seemingly just have to stand into a niche in order to shoot yourself with continuous fire to the highscore... There will always appear new enemies, no matter how many you've already killed... on the other hand proceeding is really so frustratingly difficult, that without a trainer it is almost not playable... also 4 points from me."