Sid Meier’s Railroads!

'Way back I got excited and purchased a railroad game that I was sure would provide a solid follow-on to Railroad Tycoon 3 -- a much-needed follow on with up-to-date graphics, better track-laying physics, and greater depth in transfer logistics. I bought the game and found it to be a candyfied, hopelessly dumbed, uninteresting nonentity of an entry in the genre. Played long enough to be disgusted with my wasted purchase, and promptly gave the game to my four-year-old nephew, who enjoyed it until he outgrew it at eight. Ten years later, still waiting for someone, Anyone, to provide a better sequel to RT3, I saw this title, with Sid Meier's name on it, and knew that the time had rolled steaming 'round at last. Doh! Same idiot game I bought ten years ago. At least I only paid the Winter Sale price for it. If you want a sandbox game aimed solidly at the preschool gamer, here you go. It's pretty, but the scale is absurd (six car trains stretch from Baltimore to DC). This release worked fine on my Win-Ten laptop with its shoddy Intel graphics adapter, for the short time I ran it. Altogether a fairly decent game, except for being hopelessly dumb. Looking for a modern game comparable in depth and interest to RT3? Put a minus sign in front of my three stars. If you enjoyed the RT series you will hate (I'm saying "hate" here); hate this game. Just for pooping on the whole concept of a railroad management simulator.

This game is railroad nirvana. The absolute pinnacle of tycoon games. If you have ever owned, ridden or even seen a train, you need this game. If Firaxis ever get around to updating this series again I will explode with joy. Be sure to check out their other games too, these folks consistantly pump out amazing work!

I had played Railroad Tycoon 3 A LOT, when I bought this game, thought that this would be a nice upgrade. It was not. Whereas in Railroad Tycoon, you are A TYCOON: you manage the big picture. I stopped playing Sid Meier's Railroads! when my trains collided. The game hadn't been much fun, and now it said you have to start micromanaging some damned trains and their passing tracks. If you are into micromanaging and things like that, I guarantee you are better off with OpenTTD. Transport Tycoon Deluxe kicks ass, but I'm not that keen to tediously designing complex train tracks with waiting lines and whatnot. The core game in Railroads! is painfully simple and unrealistic. Usually in tycoon games you have to adapt to environment and make it work, but not in this game: the enviroment/cities) actually adapt to you. Whereas in Railroad Tycoons you try to cover the city the best you can (as it has 2-3 dimensions), in Railroads! cities are just points in space, which you must reach. There is no economy in Railroads!, also nothing moves on land or by rivers. As I said before, painfully simple. If I must say something nice, the locomotives looked nice in their candylike appearance. But I really, really can't recommend this game to anyone. If you are a tycoon-maniac (as I am), get Railroad Tycoon 3. If you are in to micromanaging and designing great tracks and whatnot between cities, you are better off with Transport Tycoon Deluxe (or better yet, Open TTD. Google it).

I was the tunnel and he was the train. All aboard the mantrain.

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