Lego, Trains & Sim City - all in one on your PC! (Lego Loco (PC))

Member Name: fluffypup

Product:	Lego Loco (PC)
Date:	17/02/01 (2621 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Combines the best elements of Lego, trains and Sim City

Disadvantages: Anonymous postcards over the Internet

Lego Loco combines the best elements of Lego, train sets and Sim City and transmogrifies them into a simple and extremely fun game for your PC. Lego Loco is not just about building a Lego train track but also allows the users/players to building little towns and cities, akin to Sim City, for your little Lego people/bods to live, work and play in.

Lego Loco allows both children and adults alike to build little Lego creations on a virtual 3D PC environment. The main selling point is the locomotive aspect, but don’t let that put you off! Lovers of train sets should play this game, as they won’t be disappointed. Children and adults who have enjoyed playing with Lego at some time in their lives with really take to this game. If you’ve played Sim City then this game will appeal to you.

Lego Loco allows you to build and play with trains. If you’re the Deputy Prime Minister then this could be the game for you! It’s really easy and cost effective to build a fully integrated transport network within your thriving metropolis – without taxing the poor motorists! You have a little Lego suitcase where you can pick and choose to build your train, road, street and country elements. These elements are all miniature representations of actual Lego components. To build you simply open up the element type, (e.g. rail) select an item and then drag and drop onto the landscape. It’s as simple as that! It is so simple even with a bit of child instruction maybe an adult will be mastering it within minutes!

The rail Lego elements include various rail tracks (bends, straights and junctions). It also includes ready-made stations, which include platforms for your little Lego passengers, rail depot (creating trains), a mail-sorting depot (collecting mail) plus an assortment of bridges, crossings and tunnels. The road and path elements include virtually the same elements, all except the vehicles – as these are gained on the
success of your town, village or city. All countryside and green campaigners will be pleased as you get an assortment of different colour and type of trees, flowers, vegetation, volcanoes, fields, ponds, parks and statues. There are even comical seasonal elements like pumpkins, snowmen and vegetation covered in snow. The building elements, which also come ready constructed, include: houses, schools, police, fire, hospitals, shops, restaurants, a bank, clock towers, factories, power plants, offices, radar stations and cemeteries, of all things!

Your Lego suitcase also allows you to: save and load games; change the background graphic; load or save semi-build scenarios; an eraser and a bomb to blow up your creations. It’s all easy to use if for children as young as 5 to use!

The fun elements come from designing your own trains. You can choose your locomotive and the various different carriages – passenger, mail car or freight. You are allowed to have up to three different trains in play at any one time. It can be quite complex to manage the safety of the trains. Each train has differing speeds depending on the load it is carrying and its type (diesel, electric or steam). The little yellow suited train master doesn’t get too pleased when you crash his trains or miff of his passengers who continually wait for their trains.

As your town develops you gain little free moving Lego people (which you can name) who work, live, shop and play. You even get loads of skeletons moving around the cemeteries plus little kids zooming along the pavements on their skateboards. As you develop a road network you can gain little cars (police, ambulances, fire), balloons and planes which whiz around at top speed. As well as, getting people and vehicles you also get little animals ranging from: cows, rabbits, ducks, frogs and swarms of bees. The little Lego people often get stuck or bored from time to time. They hate waiting all day for a train &#
8211; so allow at least one passenger carriage per train. Realism comes from the kids try to bunk off school plus the kamikaze rabbits and frogs always seem to head towards the roads and rail tracks to get swished. You can also see a Loch Ness Monster in the lakes, a swarm of bees buzzing around flowers or see the volcano erupting form time to time.

Another facet to this game is the opportunity to send little postcards around your town or the Internet or Network. You can design little Lego postcards and then mail them. The trains can then pick up and deliver the mail around the town or Internet (via special tunnels). You get little raised or lowered flags to indicate whether you have mail/postcards. The trains can deliver mail to other players connect to the Internet or a Network. The only criticism is that all mail is sent and received anonymously, so you can’t email any of your friends or family on unless you are playing a two-player game over a known Network.

The semi-build scenarios are also a welcomed addition to this game. Instead of building your towns or villages from scratch you can pick and choose semi-build towns. You can then play and destroy these scenarios to your heart’s content.

Lego Loco is a simple, fun game that has great appeal across all age and gender groups – adult or child. We’ve had competitions on who can get the most types of elements (people, animals and vehicles) It is also highly addictive as you can experiment with different transport or building policies. If you‘ve enjoyed playing like either Lego or playing with train sets this game maybe highly suited for you. You don’t have to spend time building or laying the track, as most of it is done for you. It has similar in style to that of Sim City. It beats Sim City on being able to play and interact with the people and vehicles (trains) but lacks the high graphical detail. Lego Loco has done away with the money aspect of the
game. You just choose what to build without paying for it. As it’s aimed for children, it’s not so complex as Sim City in regard to disasters, finances and pollutions etc. It doesn’t have impressive graphics but it more than makes it up with game play and sounds (animals, people, vehicles and clocks). The graphics are just based on actual miniature Lego creations. The game also has educational qualities from building and developing towns and transport networks. It comes highly recommended and has great lasting appeal for months or years.

It has been selling in some shops for £9.99 that is a real bargain!

Summary: