A typical tradition of traffic dynamics: ensuring congestion no matter the era
Recently, I’ve been hooked on transport management games. I played Cities in Motion, a game where you have to manage the public transport system in different cities such as Berlin, Helsinki and Tokyo. Interestingly, in that game, people in Tokyo drive on the right, while streets in Berlin look more North American than European.
That said, Cities in Motion was a game I was tempted to try on my netbook, but given that it runs like dung on my proper gaming laptop, it’s definitely not gonna fly on a netbook.
I stumbled upon a really old school game. Not as old school as Transport Tycoon, not as focused as Railroad Tycoon 3, but similar. Similar in a sense you have to manage your business, ensure that you have the cash, and complete goals. It’s an isometric game made in the early 2000s, with an intriguing concept of managing a transport system that consists of vehicles such as trains, trucks, airplanes, blimps and helicopters.
Just like Railroad Tycoon, you have a choice of fetching passengers or cargo. You have to build the infrastructure – streets, railways or airports, and then pick from a large list of vehicles. From thoroughbred horses of the 1850s to electric trains of the 60s to the Boing 747 of the 90s. Yes, Boing 747.
The game pits you in three regions – North America, Europe and Australia. And in each region, there’s a host of mission that takes you through the years. The American campaign starts from the 1850′s, and your role in that campaign can range from amassing a fortune, connecting cities via rail, and supporting the space race by creating an efficient system that allows you to transport raw materials to the value-adding industries, and then sending them to the space station. What keeps you on your toes is that you’ll have to complete all of these missions in a limited time, mostly about 15-20 years.
So many choices...
The game is actually very entertaining when you’ve set up something really efficient, profitable and current. There is a great feeling of seeing the dough come forth automatically, so you can expand your transport networks. The game also runs excellent on a netbook, and you can expect hours of enjoyment on it if you like these sort of games.
The flipside, unfortunately, is also very distinct as you spend time on this game. The game has a huge host of bugs, annoyances, typographical errors and has a learning curve that is moderately a mission to learn.
The bugs are minor but can turn into major annoyances. Sometimes, buttons don’t work. Other times, you can have a route to your station, but the computer won’t recognize it and tell you that the train can’t get there. That gets truly annoying because it means you have to spend cash to rebuild your railroad. Out of the box, the game won’t save properly either – the fix is below.
Learning the game is also quite hard, especially if you’re not the RTFM (Read The Friendly Manual) kind of person. There is no tutorial, although the first few missions are quite easy because you’re only required to manage horses which don’t break nor need maintenance.
The game also has a very inelegant interface. In order to do one thing, you’ll have to make quite a disproportionate number of clicks. For example, to build a railway, you have to click on build. Out of ten buttons on the sidebar, you’ll have to remember which one. Once you click build, you’ll be presented with a number of buttons again for different modes of transportation – do you want to build a horse and truck depot? A train depot? An airport? A shipyard? Click on the right one, and then the cycle repeats again. Do you want a small, small-medium, medium or large depot? Electric or non-powered railway?
The biggest pain lies in the building the railway. To build a railway, you have to join two stations. Usually, these two stations require you to curve the railway. And then here comes the inelegant interface again: how steep do you want it? 1×1 curve? 2×2? It becomes a puzzle sometimes where you’ll have to engage in trial-and-error to see which curve will allow you to join both stations. There is no diagonal track, by the way. So building diagonally means curving left, right, left, right, etc.
Oh, if only they’ve seen how easy it is to do this on Railroad Tycoon or Cities in Motion.
The game runs excellent on a standard netbook. It does run at a native 1024×768, which means that it won’t be a perfect aspect ratio for a netbook, but the graphics looked fine while I played it. It ran quite stable without crashing.
FIX: Save Game Error
If you have a problem saving your game, head to the installation folder, and create a folder called save . The theory that I heard is that Transport Giant is too old a game and therefore is unable to weave through Windows 7′s file protection system. Create that folder in small caps and you’re good to go.
Like
So many vehicles to choose from…
So many missions to play on…
So many eras to play in…
So time sapping… (i.e. it’s ultra-addictive!)
Dislike
So many bugs…
So tough to play (initially)
So annoying sometimes
Verdict
I’m pretty glad I found this game. I used to play it in my youth and it was great. The game has lost some lustre as it has aged graphics, but the gameplay is still excellent. It is a lot of fun, and if you can tolerate the bugs, the inelegance of its interface, and the minor annoyances that come with the game, you’ll be set on one of the best transport-management sims. Though if you don’t want to go through the torture, try Railroad Tycoon 3 instead.
Gameplay: So simple, yet so addictive.
Graphics: A throwback to the mid-90s.
Work needed to get game to play: None!
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