I've Been Working on the Railroad...
And So It Starts...
You are a railroad switch operator who must quickly move track sections to enable a train to visit sixteen stations and pick up passengers. The tracks have one point of entry and another of exit, and are very curvy, which means that you must be very crafty to ensure that the train does not run out of track!
Control
You use the disc to move the track segments, shifting them around like a child's number puzzle. Once you have the track laid out so that the train can visit all of the stations, you can speed up its journey by pushing the acceleration button. The catch is that you can move tracks that the train has already traveled over, making the journey excessively frantic!
Graphics and Sound
For its time, this game is just okay. The game came out towards the end of the Intellivision's life cycle (1982), and this is certainly not its best showing. The train is pixelated, and the passengers are shown as train-sized happy faces once they are picked up. The tracks are very clear, and the gameplay is not affected by the hardware's inability to display detail. The sounds are pretty cute, with the chorus to the song "I've Been Working on the Railroad" playing whenever a new game has begun. The train's whistle is also very cute, and adds a tremendous amount to the atmosphere.
Will This Gather Dust?
This was a great puzzle game in its day, but later forays into the genre do it just as well while looking and sounding much better. I seldom pick this game up for no reason other than I would rather play Pipe Dream or Tetris to get my puzzle fix. It is certainly a must-see for anyone interested in hearing what the Intellvision hardware is capable of.
Overall Recommendation:
Buy this if:
* You like puzzle games like Pipe Dream.
* You want to add a puzzle game to your Intellivision collection.
* You played it when you were young. It's still as good.