Railroad Tycoon 3 Review
Gameplay: 9/10
Graphics: 8/10
Sound: 10/10
Replayablity: 8.5/10
Opinion: 9/10
Overall: 8.9/10 (Excellent)
It has been a long way for the Railroad Tycoon series. Railroad Tycoon 1 inspired the game, Transport Tycoon and many other tycoon games. Railroad Tycoon 2 introduced an isometric and partially 3D world. Railroad Tycoon 3 takes avantage of today's technology by making the whole game in a 3D world.
Gameplay: 9
All 'tycoon' games do not have a story, but a primary goal of running a company and becoming sucessful. New players to Railroad Tycoon would be happy of this game. This game have removed the advance strategy content of controlling the amount of cargo and passengers. But to keep the advanced players happy, there is still the complicated stock buying and selling. The game feels like 'Tropico', using the standard toolbar which is neat but clunky, with alot of buttons here and there. Soon you'll get used to the interface.
Camera control is not a problem, using your mouse to zoom, rotate and move around the game world. There is 2 tutorial missions, 1 to cover the basic and the other to cover all those advanced factors. The tutorial at the beginning encourages you to zoom all the way out to find 2 suitable towns for your starting business but this might vary on where the 2 towns are placed. Who said life was fair? Sometimes you'll have to run a line right through a forest just to be profittable. Luckily, there aren't any environmentalist in the game.
Expect alot of management of trains, alot of tracklaying and station building. You lay tracks, build stations on them and then order trains from one station to another or making a ring of stations. Laying tracks is made simple by clicking and dragging on the landscape. You also can configure the amount of bridges and tunnels appearing when you build and the type of bridge you wish to build. A neat feature is that you can link to opponent's rail lines and use their station. Although you are required to pay for using their tracks, you still earn income from their stations.
When laying tracks, they are colour-coded to show you how would trains run on the track. Green means the land is flat and trains would roll by smoothly. Yellow is moderate terrian and a little difficult for trains to perform at their regular speed. Red means that trains would require alot of power to climb the steep slope. Trains that travel really fast (try running them down a steep hill) past their average speed would be nicknamed like "London Rocket" and you can change their name anytime. Basically, it is an enhanced version of Railroad Tycoon 2.
There is a wide selection of trains available. From old slow steam engines to bullet trains. Your trains all require 3 things to run well. Oil (or mantainence), water (i still have no idea why do electric trains need water) and sand (for gripping on the track when climbing hills). Cargo also is a factor. Passengers hate to be on trains for too long, fruits rot, you lose cash if you deliver your cargo late. The reputation and look of your trains also contribute to the appeal of the public. For example, the 'Cleveland Swift' broke the land speed record and according to the train-building window (you get when building a train line) the train appeal is 'very good', there would be more passengers wanting to ride the Cleveland Swift than soot-covered trains that travel faster. All this is very nice and realistic.
But there is just a few problems in the game. It is difficult to identify industries and they disappear when you zoom out for a clearer view. Luckily, the game handles this problem by automating what cargo would a train carry. So sometimes you'll find your trains carrying paper or coal to a destination and you didn't know. But the game is alittle too simplified that I can't take cargo from station A and B and transport them to C. Also the weather effect (which is a very nice feature) doesn't seem to affect your trains at all.
After all your hard work on your trains, you can reward yourself by watching your trains do their work, loading and unloading cargo or trying to climb a really big hill you build a railway line trough. Watching trains is fun and is a rather strange behaviour. At the end of the game year, you'll get the yearly report, reporting on how much money you earn (or lost) and on your trains, just like "Tropico".
Graphics: 8
Putting Trains in a 3D world is nice. All the trains are nicely modeled though are somewhat blocky. The smoke effect from steam engines is outstanding ,the weather effect is well done, with the occasional lighting flashing across the sky. The day & night cycle also improves the game. Trains turn on their front lights, cities look like fireflies when viewed far away and you can even see the moon rising and setting.
But as the game is meant to be playable on older Pentium II systems, the graphics are dated. Cities don't have roads, they appear as a bunch of buildings with the city name on top. Train cars are uniformed but is still hard to see the difference and you'll have to rely on the tiny interface at the bottom of the toolbar, to check each car on what they are carrying.
On my Graphic Card (Geforce 4 MX440 64MB), I'm able to play rather smoothly on low-normal settings, at 20 FPS. But lags if I raise the graphic settings to a higher setting. The game still looks fine on a low graphic setting so there is no need to stress your graphic card.
Sound: 10
Very nice collection of country blues music, with some traditional music like 'Amazing Grace'. They keep on playing and playing and doesn't bring much annoyance.
The sound effect of the trains are very good. Each locomotive have it's own unique horn sound and they'll blast that horn at stations or when they feel like it.
Replayablity: 8.5
The Campaign mode is very long, with missions ranging from 1830s to 2050. Each mission have a set of objectives which are splited to Bronze, Silver and Gold. Gold is the untimate goal, hardest to achieve. Silver is in the middle and Bronze is the easiest to achive, according to the game designers. When you are done or get bored of the campaign mode, you could do some of the few scenarioes or play in the 'Sandbox', where money is not an importance and you can build freely all over the place. There is also a handy mission editor to create new missions so there can be endless replayability. 'Sandbox' may sound fun, but with the money challenge removed, it doesn't feel fun anymore.
Therefore, how much is the game replayable is up to the player. He/she may feel creating missions is fun or playing in the 'sandbox', watching trains zoom across the land.
Reviewer's Opinion: 9
Trains + Challenge = Fun.
Watching Trains + 3D graphics = Fun.
3D graphics - Dated graphics = Still fun if you don't bother about it.
Getting bankrupt in the game = Not Fun.
