Rail Simulator

[Neeyik]

Kuju Entertainment, the British developers of Microsoft's Train Simulator, return to the fray with their new title Rail Simulator. With EA taking the publishing duties and the box stating phrases such as "family-friendly", the bogie-bouncing reality-fest is aiming for a market beyond the rail enthusiast niche. So, is it the Hogwarts Express for everyone or will leaves on the line spoil the fun?

http://www.yougamers.com/reviews/14411_rail_simulator/

[Batesd]

Wow. I downloaded and tried this demo when it was first posted, and while I agree with the reviewer on some issues (the graphics being serviceable but pedestrian) In others, I'm almost left wondering if we are talking about the same game!

First off, I found the game to be very easy to get into, with helpful information pop ups, plus a number of cheat screens and overlays to guide you along in learning the game. I'm not at all sure what the difficulty curve was for the reviewer, because I came away thinking a baby could do it.

The second was frame-rate. One of he first things I did after starting up the demo and taking a few minutes to get get acquainted was pull up the frame-rate display. I was happy to see that (In the demo at least) even with all settings maxed at 1920 x 1200 my frame-rates were pretty much pegged at 60fps (I had vsync and triple buffering enabled or I suspect it would have been higher)

The only exceptions were slight dips as I passed other moving trains, and I kind of attributed that to physX issues.

All in all, I thought it was a mildly interesting game ( I kept imagining it with Crysis level graphics) that I wouldn't mind buying at a non-premium price. I think there are a lot of people who still remember their model trains fondly, and wish they still had the time, space and money to put together a nice display.

Having a no-muss, no-fuss huge train-world right on your desktop has got to be enormously attractive to that crowd, and I suspect the game will do well.

[Neeyik]

Originally Posted by Batesd

First off, I found the game to be very easy to get into, with helpful information pop ups, plus a number of cheat screens and overlays to guide you along in learning the game. I'm not at all sure what the difficulty curve was for the reviewer, because I came away thinking a baby could do it.

The reviewer was me! I did point out that one can just jump in straight away, thanks to the "two button" simple control level, but I can't say I noticed that much in the way of any pop-ups or on-screen overlays. There could be some differences here in the full game and the demo. However, that aside, there are no "beginner" missions: nothing to introduce to the points system of a network, or why certain speed limits must be adhered to; there's not much of a system (other than the schematic view) to plan a mission ahead. Train drivers also know the timetable of other services using the route, but again, there's no way (that I could see) of figuring this out in advance. Compared it to Flight Sim X, where there's a very long list of progressively harder missions (that serve a distinct purpose of introducing each function), Rail Sim just plonks you into it all.

The second was frame-rate. One of he first things I did after starting up the demo and taking a few minutes to get get acquainted was pull up the frame-rate display. I was happy to see that (In the demo at least) even with all settings maxed at 1920 x 1200 my frame-rates were pretty much pegged at 60fps (I had vsync and triple buffering enabled or I suspect it would have been higher)

The only exceptions were slight dips as I passed other moving trains, and I kind of attributed that to physX issues.

I tested the game on three totally different systems, and always got the same fps dip every so often; naturally, the size of the dip also varied between the PCs. Which route/scenario does the demo have?

Having a no-muss, no-fuss huge train-world right on your desktop has got to be enormously attractive to that crowd, and I suspect the game will do well.

Which is also why I said that such people should ignore the score, and just buy the game; for anyone else, though, there's just not enough of a game.

[Batesd]

Whoops! I didn't even check to see who the reviewer was, sorry.

Anyway, I took a moment to go back into the game for a while, and Sure enough, it seems to be the combination of options chosen which determines how much help the game gives you.

Scenario markers on and user hints on seem to be the operative choices here.

As for graphics, as I said I have them all maxed with the game running very well except for very rare, almost barely noticeable stutters which I am almost certain are PhysX induced. (I just had a crash at top speed which looked cool but did indeed bring the game to a crawl. I suspect that the game is doing some stupidly large and probably unnecessary calculations in these instances)

The demo track appears to be from Bath to Temple-comp.

Pressing the F keys brings up a bunch of usefull HUD's and overlays, at least in the demo, that is. In fact the whole world can pretty much be covered in hints if you use those keys.

I turned off low detail shadows, and left the high ones on

I hope all that made sense!

[Batesd]

Okay.......

Thread seems dead, so I will ask a different question: Does anyone know how this title compares to Ms Train simulator, as I am now interested in buying this type of game.

[Neeyik]

Sorry, busy doing other stuff. While the F keys do indeed bring up a range of useful details, I don't agree that something like the Driver's Guide, even with all the hints enabled, is aimed at total beginners - it's simply not intuitive enough. It's useful once you know what you're doing but still assumes that the player knows more than what the game is telling you, or has previously explained. For example, in the Driver's Guide, there's no explanation for what the "Oper" tab is showing you, what the values mean, and what the icons do; there's not even a "if you want to know what time it is, press F3" tip during loading or anything like that. This doesn't make the game bad, just harms its appeal to novices (and the boxes claim of being "family fun").

I can see why the demo potentially runs better than the full game: the Bath route is set in the 50s and covers a relatively quiet route and stations. Pick a modern line from London, during rush hour, and you'll get the frequent dips as the game engine handles all of the points, traffic and physics.

Compared to MS Train Sim, there's less initial content but it's arguably a better game, especially if you have the time and patience to fiddle with the editor. I hope somebody, somewhere, makes a Bullet Train add-on for it

[Batesd]

Originally Posted by Neeyik

Sorry, busy doing other stuff. While the F keys do indeed bring up a range of useful details, I don't agree that something like the Driver's Guide, even with all the hints enabled, is aimed at total beginners - it's simply not intuitive enough. It's useful once you know what you're doing but still assumes that the player knows more than what the game is telling you, or has previously explained. For example, in the Driver's Guide, there's no explanation for what the "Oper" tab is showing you, what the values mean, and what the icons do; there's not even a "if you want to know what time it is, press F3" tip during loading or anything like that. This doesn't make the game bad, just harms its appeal to novices (and the boxes claim of being "family fun").

I can see why the demo potentially runs better than the full game: the Bath route is set in the 50s and covers a relatively quiet route and stations. Pick a modern line from London, during rush hour, and you'll get the frequent dips as the game engine handles all of the points, traffic and physics.

Compared to MS Train Sim, there's less initial content but it's arguably a better game, especially if you have the time and patience to fiddle with the editor. I hope somebody, somewhere, makes a Bullet Train add-on for it

You are probably right. As a kid, I caused quite a stir by reading a lot of model railroading mags and things. (people thought I should have more traditional interests) Maybe gave me a background to draw on that I was not even aware of. As for the demo, It would not be the first time a demo ran better than a full game!

While looking deeper into this, I saw that the MS Train Simulator2 project had been reactivated and is now going to use Flight simulator 10's DX10 graphics engine. Sounds pretty cool if they don't screw it up!

And bullet trains? Eh..........
I have always wanted to drive one of those Amtrak electric trains with the miles of overhead wiring. I tried to build an N scale setup like that, but the only people in the world who make working electric trains sets like that are the Europeans. (Imported Nscale trains! ) Not a project within the budgets of your average 11 year old.

It would be cool to return to that little, never-finished train-universe I had built in my head, and finally complete it after all this time, even if only on a PC.

Nice graphics, but only with high-end pc, few tracks, few machines, no manual, and very bad view controls. They forget the mouse-wheel. They forget exit button in editor.
Result: Nice, but not usable.