Train Fever

Hard to rate... Don't go into it, if you don't have a patience and don't like the need to look over the internet for hints. There is not a tutorial to really teach you how it works. For example that each goods or person need to get to their destination in less than 20 minutes otherwise it is not using the transport. It can combine few exchanges and walking, so there is no need for showing the area for stops etc. People can walk a long way to stop. It is reminding Transport Tycoon a lot, but has some flaws (and some good things like nicer railways and full 3D of course). And it has performance issues probably related to some memory leaks. It is good to not play it for a long time in one row on one restart of computer:-(. But I really like the transport system here. So if you want to try and in worst case return, try it. But don't expect great game, expect a game with potential.

After several hours of sometimes forced gameplay, I've come to the conclusion that its underlying flaws far outweigh its few upsides. Put simply, this is a good looking if 'bare bones' tycoon-style train experience, which is severely let down by clunky controls, poor and unintuative building mechanics and a steep learning curve which - rather than being ultimately rewarding - is a disincentive to new players. This is evident straight out of the box, as the simple act of laying the first few stretches of track between two points quickly becomes a frustrating exercise. First, stations are so unweilding and cumbersome to place within existing towns that you often find your limited starting budget has been almost wiped out once the necessary buildings have been demolished to make way. Second, the potential for track pieces to colide with the world environment means often placing, replacing and replacing your lines. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if an 'undo' button were included, but it isn't. This can be a costly process, as you will be charged for each placement, demolition and replacement. Furthermore, each deleted line leaves behind the automatic modifications to the terrain, resulting in ugly, empty embankments which are near impossible to cleanly remove with the limited terrain tools. Third, wherever there is a natural intersection between track and road - and especially where elevation is involved - the game will flat out refuse to automatically place tunnels or bridges unless elements are placed at ludicrous heights or depths. This can result in comically tall bridges, or extreme elevation in city streets which sees pedestrians tackling 1/3 gradients as they meander about. Further frustrations include poorly labelled elevation changes, clunky bridge placement (particularly when attempted to place two lines side-by-side) and a lack of variety in engines, buildings and rolling stock. Sadly, Train Fever is best avoided - even for rail enthusiasts.

This game gets many of the mechanics of Transport Tycoon Deluxe right, but misses the ones that made the game fun. The rail building is very limiting, signals are a joke. They obviously aimed at a more realistic rail construction, but you can't do very obvious and common splits and joins because the editor won't allow it. I recommend Transport Fever instead. I think it is dishonest that they keep selling Train Fever after releasing Transport Fever. The former is basically just a tech demo of the latter. Very incomplete.

I was looking for a modern Transport Tycoon game. I never played that series so I wanted to play a recent game from the genre. Train Fever isn't a great example. This game has a lot going for it, at least on paper. But the experience is unpolished and unfinished. It is like the developers abandoned this game and developed Transport Fever instead, which was released just a year later. Did the developers abandon that, too, and develop Transport Fever 2? Judging by the reviews of those two games, I would suggest there's an ongoing problem in this series. There are very few instructions and you are largely left to experiment with features to see what works. I never got past the horse and cart/steam engine era because it was too frustrating to try to figure out how to make a profitable transport business. User interface is lacking polish and usability. It is a shame, because the game had a lot of promise.

The tutorial feel unfinished and is not the easiest one to follow, there is no scenario to keep you involved in the expansion of a city. The game is very nice but really the gameplay needs a lot of work for such a pricetag. It is more a game engine than a game itself.