Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends

n/a

Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends

System(s): Sega Mega Drive
Publisher: THQ
Developer: Malibu Interactive
Sound driver: GEMS
Genre: Action
Number of players: 1

Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends is a 1993 US-only Sega Mega Drive game starring the characters from the children's television show Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. The game, aimed towards the preschool demographic, has players controlling several different characters from the show's universe, including Thomas, Toby, Duck, James, and Percy. The original Thomas title music is played at the title screen. This game features music from Season 1, Season 2, and Season 3. All text is spoken by a male voice.

Gameplay

The game has four components that make up gameplay: Game, Race, Explore and a colouring book section. At the start of the game, players are encouraged to enter their names as the conductor of the train; there is a list of common names that are also selectable (Steve, Amy, Andy, et al.) for children who may not be able to write their name. From there, the player's train is picked--choosing any of the outlined characters brings up a coloring book with pictures of each character, while selecting the coloured-in Thomas skips this portion. The colouring book portion simply lets players fill in the image with various colours as opposed to any drawing.

Players can select three difficulties: easy, medium, and hard, which determine the difficulty of the Game and Race modes in the main game.

Game

The main Game mode has players fulfilling requests from Sir Topham Hatt to bring various cars scattered throughout the course to stations—depending on the difficulty set by the player, this could involve one or multiple cars and one or multiple stations. Players use the control arrows to navigate the train on the tracks and to switch tracks when the path branches. Running into a car connects it to the train, be it from the front or back. There are various small sweets on the track which may be picked up for points, although points do not affect gameplay. Pressing will disconnect a car from the train, starting with the outermost car. The button activates a steam whistle; though it serves no purpose in-game, it creates a noise and shows a graphic of a whistle blowing. Players who have forgot the request or need help can press to see the current objective. Hitting START allows players to either start that level over or quit.

Once the proper cars have been brought to the station, use or to disconnect them and end the mission. Sir Topham Hatt will praise the player's memory and/or speed, and the next request will be given. This process repeats in loop.

Race

The Race game pits the player's train against several others in a race to get to the end of the track. The trains are set on separate tracks and will not meet each other, but players must control their train as it goes down the course. Dirt patches on the track will slow down a train and must be steered around. Floating balloons above the track change the speed of the train; red and blue striped balloons slow down the train's movement, while greed and blue striped balloons increase speed. Solid-coloured balloons are also on the track, but seem to serve no purpose aside from making popping noises. They do, however, cause the train to give the player a happy face. There are sweets on the track that may be picked up for extra points, but these additional points do not effect gameplay. In the event the player does not beat the computer's train, the course may be repeated indefinitely. Defeating four trains gets the player a silver medal, and defeating all five gets the player a gold medal, ending the game.

Explore

The Explore game is an open-ended world based on that of Game mode. There is no stated objective; rather, players are free to roam around, picking up cars, visiting train stations, and looking around the map.