Sid Meier’s Railroads!

7.5
Good

Gameplay	8.0	"Morg goes off the rails on a crazy train."
Graphics	7.0
Sound	7.0
Value	8.0

By Morgan Bates

From Sid Meier’s Firaxis studio – developers of the popular Sid Meier’s Pirates! and Sid Meier's Civilization IV – comes Sid Meier’s Railroads!, a railroad game (obviously) that brings all the ‘fun’ of a model train set to your desktop, and adds management sim gameplay.

After installing the game, loading it up and skipping past the Nvidia logo, the usual FMV intro attempts to make the game look more exciting than it actually is. To its credit however, it sets the mood nicely. Set in the days of steam trains and coal shoveling, Sid Meier’s Railroads puts you in the shoes of a railroad tycoon.

Players are tasked with the job of building and managing the railway lines, while competing against other tycoons. Therefore, instead of going wild building tracks in all directions, you will have to figure out the most direct route for where you want the train to go and have the funding beforehand.

As with their previous titles, Firaxis have taken the management sim approach to train set building with a number of scenarios. Each have set requirements to fulfill over a period of years and in different countries.

You will have to take advantage of every trade place, such as farms and oilrigs, to deliver the necessary supplies to the towns and cities. There are seven scenarios, eight multiplayer maps and a lengthy tutorial to play through. Players can also build custom scenarios to play and share online.

Once you get into the game it will keep you glued to the PC for hours on end, creating that perfect track, or yelling at the monitor after wasting money on pointless railway lines because the town was further away than you estimated.

Upon completion of the tracks, players can pick from a variety of trains available, all of which are highly detailed. The game also contains everything you'd expect in a good train set - from people to plant life.

Every map is comprised of 3D terrain, and when laying tracks is made easy with ingame help. Bridges will form automatically, for example, if the track is laid over water or crevices. The texturing on the terrain is a little muddy, and is a little too smooth, giving the look of a painted plaster setup.

Sid Meier’s Railroads is a great alternative for anyone who can’t afford, or just don’t have the room for, a more traditional train set. If however you have no interest in trains, this won’t capture your interest and you may as well look for something less complex.

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