Railroad game

[FrostyBoy]

I just gave Sid Meier's Railroads a try.

I was disappointed. The little animations are nice, but the graphics really suck, they need to stop using that damn engine of theirs; too blocky, cartoony, etc. Worst of all though, is the size relation. When Age of Kings came out, everything was scaled to size, and that was fricken great. Now, when it comes to trains, scale should be a top priority; not so at Firaxis! Cities are literally one to two seconds of screen movement apart.

So, anyone out there know of a GOOD railroad game? Something recent too.

[Straybow]

No such thing. They're all scaled to eliminate the miles of nothing that were most of the reason why rails were built in the first place.

[FrostyBoy]

Realism sometimes matters.

[DarkCloud]

Railroad Tycoon II- the epitome of Railroad Games.

Do not EVER EVER buy the New Transport Tycoon made with the Rollercoaster Tycoon engine- it's awful.

The Old Transport Tycoon is, however, okay.

[FrostyBoy]

Darkcloud, do you mean Locomotion?

It's by Chris Sawyer, are you sure its that bad? From the screens it does look pretty stupid, bloody railroads going everywhere in ridiculous ways!

[El_Cid]

The original Railroad is seen by fans of the genre as one of the best - but as you have found the graphics are pretty basic. Railroad Tycoon II is probably the best mix of complexity and decent graphics, and it is probably the high point in the genre. I did play it years ago for a while, but it wasn't quite my thing(not that into trains) although i could see it was a great game to sink your teeth into and had lots of depth and longevity. It's one of those all time classic games.
None of the more recent games have bettered it sadly.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/railroad-tycoon-ii

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/railroadtycoon2?q=Railroad

[Unimatrix11]

What about RRT III ?

In II i like the China scenario the most, but there i missed tunnels and bridges...

[Guynemer]

Yes, I strongly prefer III to II.

[El_Cid]

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/railroadtycoon3?q=railroad%20Tycoon%203

for info on RTIII.

I didn't like the look of the graphics so passed on this one(besides i think i wore out my craving for a train game on RTII). But yeah it seems to have decent reviews, so if you like the graphics in III over II, it might be the one

[DrSpike]

Someone asked about this here the other day. I think what I said then was that RT3 was decently received, though less so amongst the RT2 hardcore fans.

[Unimatrix11]

Well, from what i remember, i had everything that II had + bridges, tunnels and proper 3D. What i dont get about it, is why there are no decent user-made scernarios to find on the www? Or did i just miss them?

[DarkCloud]

All Chris Sawyer did for locomotive was slap on the RR Tycoon system for building track... which actually makes it more difficult to do anything in the game.

I loved RCT. However, I found Locomotion impossible to play. The only thing it changed from its original game was the interface... and that wasn't a problem in Transport Tycoon.

Chris Sawyer really slacked on the Locomotion release.

[robinp]

I never progressed beyond the original Railroad Tycoon, which my son acquired probably illegally and which I still have on my old PC, and I enjoy it (except for the faults such as factories etc that don't work after you have spent millions of dollars putting railroads and stations in place to use them or half a million dollars buying them).

There's a free imitation called FreeRails, which looks quite promising but regrettably seems to have stopped development in 2006. It's on SourceForge. It has nearly everything RRT has but a rather unfriendly interface that needs polishing and a problem of freezing after an hour or two. And South American placenames aren't as memorable as those of north-eastern USA, for this insular English-speaker!