A lovely, atmospheric little game where you send trains to deliver cargo and/or passengers to different destinations. Lay down tracks, deploy trains, set up production chains... the time limits and other restrictions in each level can be quite challenging, but you don't have to get a perfect score on each level to progress. The expansions add more levels, which is good, as the game is very addictive. Some of the expansions get a bit weird and overly complex (Cough, Pandeia Project and Patent Pending, cough), but the base game is perfectly balanced and almost entirely great.
I love Train Valley 2. So much so, that I bought all the expansions. Not every level has been a joy to play, and perhaps the ratio of annoying levels to great ones has been declining, but on the whole, it's been fun. Pandeia Project was already getting a bit too baroque for my taste, but with Patent Pending, all the things I dislike have been boosted through the roof. Every level is weird and overly complicated. Many levels have unpredictable events occurring, often without any clear reason why. In TV 2 some things occurred at certain times, others when certain goods had been delivered, and only rarely were things seemingly random. In Patent Pending, I have not been able to figure out what events / rules cause certain things to happen. It's the first expansion I genuinely regret buying. People who prefer super complicated production chains, quirkiness / weirdness and surprises will find Patent Pending a delightful challenge. For me, who plays TV2 as a casual, relaxing game and who likes production chains that feel vaguely logical, this expansion is pure frustration.
