I've Been Working on the Railroad
Written: Nov 27 '00 (Updated Nov 27 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Easy to learn, hard to master
Cons: More economics would be nice
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| marrone's Full Review: Railroad Tycoon 2 for Windows |
Way too long, it seems.
But I can't help myself. This is definitely one of the most addictive strategy games around. It is a sequel to the first edition of the game by the famous Sid Meier. Although he didn't work on this version, the magic is still there.
This isn't a violent game. You are the president/ceo/chairman of a railroad company, fighting to survive in a capitalistic society. There are different objects, depending on which scenario you choose. Sometimes it may be to earn the most money for your company. Other times it may be to earn the most money for yourself (which doesn't necessarily mean for your company, as you can buy/sell stock in other companies as well). Sometimes it's to build the most efficient railroad system, or to be the first to connect a route across europe, or the US, etc. Sometimes it's just to control a certain amount of industry. There is even a sandbox mode for those who don't want to worry about economy, or money, or even playing the game itself...you can just play with trains if you like.
The interface is adequate for the game. It's a 3-D view of the landscape, which can be rotated 90 degrees to give alternate viewpoints (in case you are laying track behind a mountain range, for example). Different zoom levels give you a better overall picture of what's going on, or immense detail...you will find yourself using more than one level as the game progresses. It is realtime, and you can slow down or speed up the game as you see necessary, as well as save it at any given point.
Be sure you have the latest patch for the game, though (which, at the moment of this writing is 1.05). It adds a couple little nice features (such as the notification that a train crashed and would you like to replace it?), as well as a few bug fixes (mainly the one where, after having a lot of track laid, it takes forever to lay more).
You basically build your railroad empire by building stations in cities, and transporting cargo to and from them, as well as industries located outside of cities. The idea is to make it as efficient as possible, and to create loops (example: pick up chemicals to deliver to a fertilization plant, which creates fertilizer to bring to a grain producer, then take the grain and sell it to a cattle farm to breed more cattle which you can bring to a meatpacking plant which packages the new meat into food which people will buy in a city. Whew!) But remember the laws of supply and demand...oversell an item in a particular area, and the people won't pay as much for it, so this must be taken into account...a very nice touch indeed.
I haven't used the multiplayer option, unfortunately, but would love to. The scenarios themselves are pretty hard, but I still crave playing against a human.
If there is an improvement that I would like to see, it would be the economics model. There isn't a lot of stockmarket manipulation...it is pretty abstract, and the player doesn't have much control over it.
The graphics are decent, could be better, but it's a strategy game, not a "train game", and therefore really isn't that important. Same goes for the sound...more effects could be put in, but it doesn't really matter. Since the game isn't action oriented, it wouldn't add much. This game requires patience, and I wouldn't recommend this for kids not yet out of grammar school.
A typical game could last anywhere from 2 hours, up to perhaps 20 hours, depending on the scenario, and the speed at which it's played.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
marrone
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Reviews written: 54
Trusted by: 38 members
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