- Become a railroad mogul by working your way up the ranks of the railroad industry.
- Build the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, or the Orient Express.
- Run steam trains through African jungles.
- Includes Railroad Tycoon II, RT Second Century, RT Gold, plus 50 new scenarios.
- 2 - 8 players.
.com
----
Railroad Tycoon 2 puts players in control of 34 types of cargo
cars and 51 train engines from around the world. Players can span
the ages from 1804 to beyond 2000 while establishing
transportation empires and outmaneuvering robber barons.
Scenarios allow for worldwide exploration and expansion. A
sophisticated economy and stock market let players test their
entrepreneurial prowess.
Railroad Tycoon 2 is based upon PopTop's proprietary S3D engine,
which allows for highly detailed 3-D graphics and renderings. The
game was developed exclusively for 1024 x 768 resolution in
either 16-bit or 8-bit color.
Review
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In an industry now thriving on "me too" games, it defies belief
that there have been so few previous entries in the "build and
manage" genre started by the original Railroad Tycoon. At least
half of these have come from Maxis.
Railroad Tycoon II by PopTop Software puts you in charge of a
vast railroad empire in the persona of one of the legendary
tycoons or government figures of the day. The train and station
limits from Railroad Tycoon are gone. You can build stations and
buy trains to your heart's content without bumping into an
artificial limit. To the best of my knowledge, no one has
exceeded the train/station limit, if there is one, relieving one
of the most frustrating features of the original Railroad Tycoon
when playing on large s.
The graphics are wonderful. At high levels of zoom the trains
look photo-realistic. As time passes, the various cars
(passenger, mail, coal, etc.) change their appearance to match
the era. Stations have architectural styles to match the
geographic area. Smoke belches from the engines, trails from
homes, shoots out of steel mills. Visually, trains remain
straight and level instead of following the track uphill or
around a tight curve, which takes some getting used to, but
watching a 4-8-8-4 Big Boy running at full steam is a glorious
experience.
The sound effects are equally stunning. Each structure has its
own sound set. Zoom in to hear the cattle lowing at a ranch; zoom
out and the sounds blend together from different buildings giving
each region a distinctive personality. Train ces sound
appropriately apocalyptic. Sell some stock and a chorus of voices
echoes your actions.
The manual does an adequate job of explaining most of the
details and concepts of the game, but there are annoying lapses.
Gone are the train descriptions of Railroad Tycoon II's ancestor.
Instead we get a bare list of trains according to their
availability. On the other hand, a large foldout full-color
cardboard playing aid shows all the cars, with full details on
their weights in different periods, an industry flowchart with
all the interrelationships depicted, and lists of buildings,
station improvements, and hotkeys.
The train model has been simplified to some extent. There are no
signal towers, though you can set the priority of a train
(express, normal, slow, and stop) and tell it to go, wait until
half full, or wait until full of cargo. You cannot drop off cargo
at one station to be picked up by another train; one of the few
steps back from Railroad Tycoon.
The business model is much more complex than Railroad Tycoon.
When playing in expert mode you can buy on margin or sell short,
giving you and the computer players all the tools to be all the
ruthless robber baron you can be.
If business bores you, you can turn off some or all of the
economic model. In addition to three canned difficulty levels,
you can mix and match to create your own custom difficulty
settings. Or chuck the whole thing, load a , and play in
"sandbox" mode where the only restriction is your imagination.
While Railroad Tycoon II is a real-time game, as was the
original, you can pause the game at any time and continue to work
in the game. This is especially recommended when manipulating
stock; the computer players are ruthless and will gut you if
given the chance. It is as easy to gain or lose a fortune in
Railroad Tycoon II as it was in the golden age of robber barons.
Competing with other railroads is more indirect than in Railroad
Tycoon. There are no rate wars. Instead, you can run trains on
other railroads' tracks and use their stations, and they can use
yours. For this privilege you pay a hefty price that can exceed
the actual return, if your stay on their lines is long enough.
The computer players manage their rail lines adequately though
not on par with a good human player.
The various displays for trains, cargo, stations, and your
company make setting up and managing a railroad much easier than
before. The supports multiple levels of zoom, and you can
toggle on and off different cargoes' supply/demand, train grades,
station displays (having these available on the makes setting
up new routes much easier), and other features that are legible
at all zoom levels.
Real life also intrudes more than it used to. Wars,
international borders, and economic events have to be dealt with
and aren't the pro forma nuisance notices they were in Railroad
Tycoon. To run trains through several countries requires
obtaining the rights (read: mucho dinero).
There are more than 60 trains and 31 different cargoes as well
as a dining car and caboose. There are three station sizes, and
the station orientation can be hard-set to one of eight choices
or left to the computer. Track layouts can be contorted to
ridiculous extremes so that expanding an established rail network
is no longer the headache it was in Railroad Tycoon.
There are complex cargo relationships. Iron and coal must both
be taken to steel mills to get steel. Rubber goes to tire s,
but both steel and tires must be provided for automobile s
to produce their precious load.
Playing Railroad Tycoon II with all options on is an immersive
experience. You can get lost in the details of stocks, bonds, and
mergers or setting up routes and consists. Railroad Tycoon II
never becomes a click fest. Sometimes considerable periods can
pass without the need for intervention so you can watch your
creation at work.
There are a few flaws. The most glaring is that there is no undo
option when laying track. Laying track on large s with lots of
trains even when paused can be tricky. The program doesn't always
keep up with your mouse movements, so saving before track work
becomes a necessity.
There are also no long bridges or tunnels. They have been
"incorporated" into the track-laying process without any visual
representation. Instead, when laying track there is a certain
self-leveling process that takes place to reduce grades. Some
sort of additional grade reduction mechanism would be a good
addition. On the upside, there is a greater appreciation for
long-haul trains like the Mikado or the Big Boys.
Trains c and breakdown more often than one might like, even
when all maintenance options are used. If a c occurs when you
are short of funds there is no way to save the route for a later
time when coffers are full nor to directly replace a named train
that has ced. However, Phil Steinmeyer, the developer, is an
active participant in the comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic
newsgroup, and one patch has already been issued. So this point
isn't moot yet.
PopTop has made the difficult look easy. It produced a sequel
that eclipses the original in nearly all aspects. Playing
Railroad Tycoon II is an emotional experience bringing back
memories of Lionel trains and Christmas mornings long past and
staring at Lionel catalogs and dreaming. No more arguments with
Mom or your spouse over how much of the house has been taken over
by your dream layout or how much money you've wasted. With
Railroad Tycoon II, all those dreams of childhood can be realized
at last. --Samuel Brown Baker
--Copyright ©1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction
in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written
permission of GameSpot is prohibited. -- GameSpot Review
