| Product: |
Locomotion (PC) |
| Date: |
12/12/04 (496 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: more opponents, new transport options
Disadvantages: still poor AI, some scenarios are ridiculously easy others ridiculously hard
Having played Transport Tycoon for the best part of a decade – I think I started playing in around January 1996, the question of whether or not to purchase the “spiritual sequel" was a pointless – of course I would, not least because the game had an inflation busting EUR 19.90 price tag - I'd expected that it was going to retail at closer to EUR 50.
In the intervening period, Chris Sawyer has produced a number of games – basically all of the same genre – namely management simulations with an assortment of different flavours (e.g. rollercoasters, theme parks, railroads) and Locomotion is yet another in the series - indeed the engine behind it I believe is lifted from another of his games.
Being the spiritual successor to Transport Tycoon and Transport Tycoon Deluxe (TT and TTDLX from now on for the sake of brevity) you’d expect that the name of the game was to build up a transport empire à la Stagecoach, Virgin etc. The old game was very playable although your computer competitors often played into your hand with their stupidity (massive amounts of carved up land to avoid carving up a tree for a train route, etc.) Whereas you used to have a maximum of seven opponents, you can now have up to 15 opponents, and they are less one dimensional than in TT – some are very aggressive or competitive, some are more considered about their approach.
There have been some new additions to the game – tramways are a welcome addition, although they can cause a city’s growth to explode and make any scenario target involving passenger numbers very easy to achieve. There are new commodities involved – there are no longer banks with valuables to transport - for example there are grapes to make into wine (huzzah!). There are also new locomotives, aeroplanes etc. (the fictional Yate Haugan (read: Concorde) has given way to the Concorde) and many have accurate names, although their passenger capacity is inaccurate.
The Concorde for example makes the game very easy – a 250 people capacity makes it very easy to have all your Christmases and Birthdays rolled into one with a single passenger route from one side of the map to the other raising you a million pounds per return trip – this will fund any tramway project around a city with ease! At least the subsidy bonuses that helped you to get a flying start in TT have been removed – a couple of quadruple subsidies and you’d all but sewn up a game in TT!
There are an increased number of scenarios included with the game - split between five difficulty levels, although some seem to be misplaced - some challenging scenarios were completed first go, whilst I couldn't complete a medium difficulty scenario until about the 20th attempt. Any scenarios you then build are added to the list – they are graded according to difficulty, and ticks are added to those you have completed, with information about the quickest completion of the scenario.
The complexity of track options has improved – you can build inclined track, with different track curve radiuses too - although this can lead to track not quick meeting up! Stations are no longer of fixed dimensions - the maximum of 4x5 block platforms is just a memory. Unfortunately though you have to be careful, especially when you select to see through buildings, that you don't demolish skyscrapers etc. - this can be a massive problem as you wipe out the population of your city. Tramway routes allow you to have a U-bend at the end of the route to ensure that the trams can carry on going – I often just let the trams go merrily on their way without instructions – they seem to pick up passengers nicely this way.
The user interface has become more complicated given the added options involved - it can get overcrowded on occasions - with all the dropdown sub-menus and the fact that you can have up to 7 windows open on the playing area. Route planning is not as straightforward as in the previous game – I have discovered that hovercrafts can often get lost and end up spinning round in circles until you find them. Whilst the graphics are more detailed than before, and the vehicle characteristics likewise - e.g. the APT really tilts around corners, the Boeing 747 and Concorde appear too big for the game in terms of size, and from realism terms this detracts substantially. The trains are perhaps the biggest culprits in this respect – the old steam logos with their tenders and carriages mean that you have to have an eight or nine block station – that’s quite excessive.
There is copy protection on the game, and you have to keep the CD in the drive whilst playing the game – this can be annoying if you are on the go and don’t usually want to have a game in your drive of your laptop. There is an online gaming option, although I have yet to try this, given the fact that I am the only person I now who is an owner of the game.
The sound effects can get a bit boring after a while – the sound of tooting horns, revving engines etc. can get on your nerves and the limited range of tunes can make the in-game music a little bit repetitive, so I usually turn the sound off and listen to a CD or the radio. The graphics retain the familiar feel of Transport Tycoon - although trains etc. are more detailed. The game still has the quaint feel to it – especially given the tramways in little towns named with twee names – suburbia rules, eh?
Of course it is the very middle-classed nature of the game that is almost its downfall – if you maintain your vehicles well, then the coppers flood in in torrents – you don’t have youths putting sleepers on railway lines, people playing chicken, driver strikes, the delays, wrong types of leaves on tracks / snow sending your network into a near-standstill.
At the end of the day the game is good clean fun, although ultimately I have found that after a month of intermittent playing, I have scythed through most scenarios and the appeal of the game is starting to dwindle, although I can't foresee uninstalling it for the near future - there are a couple of fiendish scenarios to complete still.
Patches are unofficially released to eliminate the problem of incorrect vehicle capacities affecting the ease of scenarios – www.tt-forums.net seems to be the best source of them, as well as all discussions about the game itself.
I would have to say that given the addictive nature of TT, I was a bit surprised that Locomotion was not up to the same standard really. Don’t get me wrong, you will enjoy playing the game, but I don’t see it having the same long-term shelf life or appeal that its predecessor so definitely did have.
Summary:
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