Sid Meier's Railroads! | Railroad Tycoon Sequel

Sid Meier's Railroads! | Buy it for a 25% discount but read on first.

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Sid Meier's Railro...

	Sid Meier's Railroads! Windows \| 2K Games, 2006 average customer review:based on 52 reviews view larger image
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Railroad Tycoon Sequel

This title is the tre sequel to Railroad Tycoon. If you loved the old 1990's original, you'll enjoy this one as well. Only con to the game is replayablity, which is very limited.

Buy it for a 25% discount but read on first.

Have you ever had a game that you just like to play even though it is unfinished and not so complex? Well this is one of them.
This is not a simulation . This is not RRT2. This is a cute toy train set that you set up with its routes and engine. The Sid group seems to want a different audience with this game since it is quick to start and quick to finish, you make lots of money and fast, and you can beat the ai by the end of the scenario for the icing on the cake.
SMR! looks great but you'll need at least the recommended requirements. I used a 2.4Ghz Pentium4, 256Mb Nvidia 6800GT, but the 512MB memory I think is the culprit for the game being extremely slow with less than 1/2 the graphic goodies in the game. Anti-aliasing and shaders off, trees off, and still laaaaging at the lowest possible resolution - 1024x768.
Replay-ability depends - it is simple in execution, aimed to make you a winner so you feel good about buying out your competitor tycoons. I play it a lot cause I love little trains going about their business but it is not too challenging.
The auctions, industries, and stock market - well maybe there is a lot to do with that and I have missed the point but I do nothing with all that. I just make sure my trains supply the towns with a variety of goods so that the towns become large cash cows and then save cash to buy out the competitors. So it seems that there is no need to bother with anything else.
The train engines are many but basically all you get is more speed as the years go by and they cost more. You don't have to upgrade too often. I had trains run for over 100 years and things were smooth and profitable. And they 'll never crash or run out of anything they need.
They get to where you want them to go quite nicely with few exceptions where they won't start from the track you'd like. You need to plan the tracks to get everything working well and that is the brain teaser and fun part if you choose the "hard track layout" but sometimes they will loop through the wrong track and you have no choice in that. The AI lays out its own tracks like the real thing - it is nice to look at those and get some tips too.
Bugs - Sometimes trains disappear and reappear back where they came from but it is rare. Sometimes you see things flying through the screen, like a piece of a train or smoke launch like a cannon ball and again this is rare and funny; definitely a bug though. Oh, and this happens even after I upgraded my nvidia drivers.
Lastly it crashes to the desktop; happened about 6 times in roughly 20 hours of play and I think much has to do with using the page file for memory cause I only have 512MB. So save often.
Despite all this I still recommend it for I would think at least a 25% discount off it's original price. I'll keep my full price copy cause despite it's flaws I still enjoy it albeit with a lot of patience.
I know I have not said much about the fun of the game and it is not fair cause I like playing it but really the only enjoyable thing is to lay down the track and watch as everything works like a clock but not more than that. For many this will get old quick but it looks real nice with a cartoonish colorful look that keeps you going at it.
I would not expect it to carry the Sid Meier name. I am a fan of his Civilization series and if I were him I would not have let it be released; forget about putting my name on it. It definitely is close to being a polished game and it could be made more engaging but as is it is not finished. The first patch is out already and hopefully they'll patch, patch, patch, until it's done.

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Railroads with 11/11/06 patch...

I've played this game since version 1 and without a doubt this is the most frustrating. There was a patch released for this on November 11, 2006. It improved frame-rates DRASTICALLY, especially near the end of the game. Quitting the game and back to the starting screen is much faster with the patch and I haven't crashed to the desktop yet (a very frequent event without the patch). The computer AI is more agressive as well giving you a somewhat better challenge (although the game is still painfully easy to RR vets)

The improvements come at the expense of train routing. Even in easy mode you will see trains get stuck on switching stations, you will find trains in the far NW corner of the map suddenly stuck in the far SE corner. And even when things seem to be working perfectly the mind just boggles at some of the switching decisions the game makes to the extent that the game is pretty retarded if you're not in easy train routing mode just for all the bugs. Other annoyances are map scenarios which are impossible to complete (buy a newspaper in boise for instance when the city starts with 3 industries, none of which are a newspaper).

If you seek to escape the horrors of the computer AI, you will be sorely disappointed with the multi player game. The available games are non-existent and the games that do start frequently disintegrate before the first track is laid. After much trying, I've yet to get in a full multi player game just for lack of players.

Visually the game is stunning and with the patch, playable with a mid-range system (without the patch you'll need a very beefy system to handle some maps late in the game). The game play however is sorely lacking in nearly every aspect from the AI, to the economy, to the all-important train routing.

For all it's faults however, I still find myself loading the game often because it does get just enough right to be interesting and fun.

Not worth the introductory price but in a few months when the price falls below $30.00 it may be worth the price of admission especially if firaxis continues to provide patches which correct the game's many faults.

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Flawed execution of a potential classic.

I am pleased with this game in general as it serves the function of being a fairly open sandbox style railroad game without getting bogged down in statistics.

The problem I have with this game is in the performance and crashing bugs. Right now performance is very poor, even on high end machines, and there are many crashing bugs in the game that impede enjoyment.

I would rate this a 5, or darn close, if the bugs and performance weren't so abysmal, but seeing as how it is barely playable in its current state, I think a 3 is GENEROUS. What I can play, I do enjoy.

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