Yes and no. It’s a tough choice even though I know I’ll be putting more hours into this. It is one of the better railway construction simulators out there, but it doesn’t do things as well as I’d like it is a short summary.
Firstly, the scale of the maps is a negative. This means that ridiculous things — such as tunnelling under the Andes — can happen with regularity. That said, the visuals of the landscapes are pretty stunning and probably the makeup of the terrain is one of the biggest positives here.
Secondly, the missions are ridiculous. Nearly every game turns from a “very hard” start to “coast through the end” because as soon as there is a decent cashflow, the challenge drops away. Yet, the way the programmers coped with this was to add silly tasks such as “Buy your competitor” to the end of (nearly) every mission. In most cases, this just means speeding through a few years of play to collect the money to buy them outright. There is no challenge, and most cases (especially looking at the development of railways) this is an illogical step.
I’m also not a biggest fan of how industries and city development occur, and, lastly, I think the game is pretty poorly optimised compared to other games. Nevertheless, as I said to begin with, there are things to enjoy here, and it is one of the best railway simulators around. I think Railroad Tycoon 3 is a touch better than this, but it hasn’t aged as well as it could have, and the eye-candy part in this game makes me prefer this to other railroad simulators that are out there at present.
Originally posted on Steam.
