Lucky Luke: Desperado Train

Laying down his Marshal Law!

In case you didn't know, Lucky Luke happens to be a cartoon strip from France. Taking the role of this comic gunslinger you have to chase down a train which some dastardly bandits have hijacked. You go from town to town across America to battle a whole host of hostile henchmen in order to save the day.

There is certainly plenty to do and a variety of game styles to choose from but, unfortunately, this is a game that thinks that it is challenging by being just plain difficult. So what if the game is on the tricky side? Is that all bad? Well, yes if the game is more frustrating than challenging. Controlling the characters on your D-pad can be awkward and inconvenient in places where a wrong step can send you to an untimely demise. This is more apparent in levels where you are playing the role of a dog/horse/steamboat instead of Luke. Contact made between the horde and an enemy is especially awful, making it very hard to judge how to jump an obstacle ahead of you!

Wester-Doh!

Apart from the odd distraction, most of the levels are the familiar scroll left, jump and shoot antics we are all used to. If you manage to make your way through them, there are many interesting bonus rounds ranging from shoot-outs, through wagon-rumble races to our favourite, a dancing game where pressing the right buttons in time to the tune is required to keep you moving in the right direction.

The end result of all of this is a game that looks good enough to eat, but at the end of the day is ultimately difficult to stomach! If you are looking for an improvement on the first Lucky Luke activity, then you will be disappointed. If you are new to Luke though, then stick with the comic strips and stay away from this.