Choo! Choo!
Written: Mar 21 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Gameplay
Cons: Needs lots of screen realestate
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| EasyTarget's Full Review: Railroad Tycoon 2 for Windows |
I like real-time strategy games. I guess it comes from my days of building things with lincoln logs. Nothing beats spending time building a wonderful home and having the ability to blow it up and start all over again. I think this contributes to why I enjoy real-time strategy games. Railroad Tycoon II allows you to build a mighty railroad empire, and blow it to smitherns. Okay you can actually bomb the heck out of your trains, unless you provide no maintenance, then they WILL blow up. The basic premise is that you are in charge of a new railroad company and must build a mighty empire to move goods and service back and forth across the country. The game is historical based, meaning you start in one time period and as the years progress new trains become available. As the years roll by, you need to build more track to deliver more goods to different cities, only problem you do not have unlimited cash. You need to deliver goods in order to get money, allowing you to expand your empire, sometimes there are bonuses for building to a certain city. You can quickly get very engrossed in expanding your empire west, and blow your all your money, while forgetting about the stockholders. Thats right, not only is Railroad Tycoon II a railroad game its also a economic simulator. You need to keep the stockholders happy, paying out dividends, & turning a profit. You also need to finance your company through stock options and bonds. I was quite content in buying all of the latest and greatest trains and forgot to turn a profit, I was then hitting the pavement looking for a new job. I was fired. The stockholders are a mean little bunch and do not care about your wife and kids, when theres coal to be hauled to Pittsburgh. I thoroughly enjoy the non-violent nature of this real time strategy game.
Graphics: The game is shown from an isometeric 3d view, allowing you to see all of your little trains go chugging along. You can also watch your cities grow as you dump more & more resources into them. You do need a newer system PII-233 to allow for dozens of trains to go flying around the screen. The maps faithfully reproduce the United States, United Kingdom, and Africa.
Sound: Trains chug, ca-ching of money, and roars from your stockholders. The sound clues guide your to what is going on, but when you have 20 trains chugging about it may not be too useful.
Gameplay: The computer AI is not the sharpest critter in the book, but does provide a challenge. The computer almost always stops building at a certain point, which degrades the challenge. The difficulty levels are customizable allowing you access to the more challenging economics side of things, while still giving you bonuses over what the computer gets. The higher the difficulty level the control you have over your empire, also the slower the building will be.
Railroad Tycoon II provides hours and hours of fun, and is the game you can keep going back to enjoy.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
EasyTarget
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Member: Michael Mooney
Location: Boston, MA
Reviews written: 20
Trusted by: 1 member
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