The engines are all very detailed with little smoke curls coming out of the steam powered ones, sparks for the electrics and all the little industries moving and dumping supplies into your trains as they stop near them.
So instead Railroads has kind of cartoon-like graphics that resemble a model train yard type of setup. That means the cities are pretty much icons representing cities and the units are out of proportion, but trying to see a train compared to a city in reality would be impossible. They use the same engine as with Civilization IV. It should come as no surprise that they are pretty amazing. Lets then start fresh and talk about the graphics. With Railroads, I think warning off those expecting a hugely detailed sim should be sufficient.
#HOST SID MEIERS RAILROADS OVER HAMACHI SERIES#
The gameplay there essentially comes down to a series of mini-games on a single fixed map. Look at the re-made Pirates as an example. They have a point, but Railroads follows the new trend of easier to play games that even kind of approach the casual gaming market. In other words, when was the last time we dinged a simulation game for being too easy to get into and play? But that is exactly what the hardcore sim players are saying in a lot of reviews.
That said, I would like to try and review Railroads in a vacuum. With RT3, you had to have the right technology to build bridges and could not run track through existing buildings or industries because they were there first.
You simply plop it down where you want and the game will put it in place, even moving city buildings out of the way so your track can get through. Much of the fine details present in Railroad Tycoon 3 are not here. Depending on how you look at things, Railroads is either a great game to play that lets you jump right into the action and become a rail baron with very little practice, or too simplistic to be taken serious as a simulation given its predecessors. If you or one of your competitors don’t zoom over and grab a resource, it won’t get to market or it will simply sit in its existing market. That is not the case with Railroads, as trains are king. If your trains were too slow or ignoring them, the producers of goods would find a way to get to market without you. There were also roads and waterways to contend with. For example, goods would not have to take your trains, or any trains for that matter, to get to market. In Railroad Tycoon 3 the game was pretty difficult at times. Make no mistake that this is not a Tycoon type of game. Truthfully, it seems like they might be trying to play it both ways, stressing in user forums that this is not Railroad Tycoon IV (or 4) but also playing up to the fact that this is the first railroad sim that Meier has had direct influence over since 1990. I am not sure if Sid could not get the rights back to the Railroad Tycoon name or if they did want to be directly associated with the series anymore, but this game was named "Railroads!" for whatever reason. The entire series was basically a hardcore economic simulation, which while off-putting to those that want to jump right in, suited simulation buffs just fine.Īll the literature and promotional materials (like the giant banner at E3 last year) proclaimed that Railroads was a return of the classic. Then the rights to the name was sold to PopTop software, which created Railroad Tycoon II and eventually Railroad Tycoon 3 (yes I got the punctuation correct, they switched from Roman numerals to alpha characters). The original Railroad Tycoon game was released in 1990 and enjoyed a lot of success. This history of the game is a bit different than with the Pirates franchise. Railroads is back now too, though it does not feel like it has been gone that long. Pirates had been gone far too long, and it was great to have it back. The last Sid Meier title to be resurrected from the grave was Pirates, and many of us have spent long hours on the high seas, remembering the days when we sailed our Commodore 64s and IBM PCs into the wee hours of the morning. It’s always nice when we can return to a long lost classic.
0 kommentar(er)
