With the final retail release of Aurans' Trainz is now
either on store shelves or on its way to store shelves, it seems that the
"virtual" railway enthusiast has another product to choose from. Not bad
when you think only a year ago people who loved trains were feeling very
left out by the P.C. gaming industry.Trainz was first released as an online purchase before Christmas at a cost of $49 US. Since then Strategy First has picked up Trainz and is distributing the retail copy for Auran, initially in North America. The retail box copy of Trainz costs $39.99 and is available from most major stores that carry computer games. There is no difference between the two versions, so there is no real difference between buying online or from your favorite retailer except for the obvious convenience of striding in and picking it up.
The first thing you'll notice about Trainz when you pick it up is the title on the box, "Trainz, Model Railroading on your PC.", and this pretty much describes what Trainz is intended to be; a model railway simulator. Upon opening the box you'll find your Trainz CD and a fairly well written manual that walks you through the installation, and then goes into a rundown of what the different parts of the program includes and how to use them. Needless to say like your typical male I only skimmed through the manual as I anxiously awaited the program to finish installing, which happily it did without incident.
Once I had Trainz installed and running on my PC I decided to have a look around to see what the sim consisted of. Trainz is presently broken down into three modules, "My Collection", "Driver", and "Surveyor", with each module allowing you to do different things with the program.
Trainz ships with a fairly good selection of rolling stock and locomotives from around the world, with the main focus being on the railways of North America, the U.K., and Australia. All in all with Trainz you get 15 locomotives in 38 different skins and 50 types of rolling stock for both freight and passenger trains - it should be enough to keep most people happy initially.
Now we move on to the "Driver" module. This really is the heart of the
game as it stands and it's the module that allows you to operate your
virtual model railway. The first thing you do when you open the driver
module is select the various consists you wish to use and then place them
on the starting points for the layout you wish to drive on.The game ships with three layouts from the three main regions the game focuses on (UK, North America and Australia). Once you have selected your train and layout, you then get to choose various options for running your "virtual model railway". These options range from whether you want to use a virtual "DCC controller" (simplistically this is like the good old dial control we used as kids to drive our model railways, DCC is just a much more modern way of doing it) or using proper cab based locomotive control as you would in Microsoft Train Simulator. You can also choose the time of day and the weather conditions not to mention the ability to make the weather change as you go, which certainly adds some variety. Further options allow you to choose to accelerate time or go with real-time and whether you want to be able to derail or not. These options should certainly appeal to everyone from the die-hard user to the casual user. It sounds like there are quite a few but it's a very simple user interface and Trainz will remember your settings from one time to the next.
Once you're all setup, it's off to driving.
One of the first things you notice in driver is how picturesque everything
looks. The scenery is nicely modeled, as are the trains themselves. It's
definitely worth taking a look around and examining your rolling stock and
scenery. Now it's time to release the brakes and advance the throttle.
With a big cloud of black smoke pouring out, your locomotive picks up the
slack from the train and begins to move forward on its journey around the
layout. As the train begins to pick up speed it's time again to move to
an external view and watch you train move through the scenery. As you
pass over a bridge, you notice little waves on the water that actually
make it look like it's moving and you can even see the light reflecting
off the water. Then a little while later you pass through a small town
with a station, and you can see the people on the platform waiting for
their train to come in (though these aren't animated, but then let's not
get too demanding here!). All in all, the visuals of Trainz are very well
done and lend themselves very well to the overall feel of the game.
It's also worth briefly mentioning the cab view. It's quite likely that many people reading this review are at least familiar with Microsoft Train Simulator ('MSTS'). Cabs in MSTS are static 2D affairs with frame animated controls and displays. For example, your reverser control is three graphical images for each position - this does the job, but it looks like a game still. We hope that this will be investigated for the next release of MSTS - but then this isn't a review of MSTS so let's get back to the point.
Trainz has a full virtual 3D cab. It's in our opinion one of the
strongest points of Trainz. You can control the train in full 3D, turn
your head in full 3D and see all the controls moving fluidly - all in all
a highly rewarding experience and well worth the effort Auran have put in
to it.
As you continue your journey it's time to reduce the throttle, apply the brakes and start slowing down for the station. At this point you notice how the game handles the physical movement of a locomotive. Overall this is done quite well and you certainly get a feel for moving (and trying to stop!) a locomotive. The only negative thing is that some of the locomotives seem a little underpowered and have trouble reaching their designed operating speed with a full consist. A good example here is the British Class 55 Deltic, which had trouble getting above 75-80 MPH with a rake of seven coaches. If you know what you're doing and aren't afraid to dabble with internals then you can certainly go into the engines' physics folder and give the loco a little more power.
Another big stand-out difference between Trainz and MSTS is that with driver you can place multiple consists around your layout and then switch locomotive when you are driving. As you switch from one locomotive to another, the one you were just driving can now be controlled by AI, allowing you to have multiple trains running around the layout or you could just park it an leave it. This is a really nice feature that allows you to do things like assemble a train in a yard, switch to a different locomotive, pick up the consist, and drive out of the yard and begin your journey.
It should be noted that there is presently no facility similar to the
concept of Activities that are in MSTS - AI trains will simply follow the
posted speed limits and nothing more. The next module for Trainz, named
'Yardmaster' will reportedly add this facility in and we are very much in
anticipation of it as the lack of activities is ultimately something you
will miss.
The real limitations here are your imagination and time, but if you can imagine it the chances are very good that you can create it even if you've gasped at the thought of using the complicated MSTS Route Editor. Be very clear that Surveyor is a very different ballgame to the MSTS Route Editor; where MSTS Route Editor is designed only for techies, Surveyor is very much designed for everybody to be able to have a play. In our opinion this one area they have excelled at.
"Surveyor" also ships with a good selection of scenery, which will allow you to create a wide variety of layouts using a base theme from one of the three primary regions of the world it comes with. The game supports "custom" add-ons which will allow you to develop your layouts and collections the way you want them to be and focus on the region of the world you wish to focus on.
One really nice feature here is that Trainz supports a free modeling
program from Discreet called "GMAX" which allows people to build and
import their own custom built locomotives, rolling stock, and scenery.
GMAX is based on and very similar to 3D Studio Max - to give you an idea
of its power. So if you can't find the add-on you're looking for you can
always build it yourself.
It should be noted that at the time of review, the 'game pack' for GMax to enable it to export to Trainz is not yet available and there is no release date other than 'as soon as possible'. Apparently it's all done, it's just tied up in licensing agreements so hopefully it won't be too much longer.
Overall Trainz gives a good feel for "virtual model railways" and allows the user a great deal of flexibility in the way they wish to design and operate their railway. However there are certainly some areas which need to be improved upon. The AI trains operate a little erratically and often don't do what you want them to do. You can leave a train, hoping it will continue its journey, only to come back to it and find it's stopped in the middle of the rails for no apparent reason, or indeed where you left it stopped in a yard, it has decided to go wandering up to a point near the main line even though when it gets there it can't go any further because the point is against it.
The other major feature which Trainz seems to be missing is a "save" function, that would allow you to save the game the way you finished it and come back to it later. As it is, if you leave the game and come back to it, your trains all revert back to the start point you initially set up for them when you entered the "Driver" module. This really limits what you can do in the game and you soon find yourself doing the same thing over and over again and greatly reduces the long term playability that the game offers.
One should note here, that Auran is planning several future modules for
the game which will allow you to do different things. As we have
mentioned, the next module is "Yardmaster" and this module looks like it
will allow you to accomplish more complex things with the game such as
setting up and operating a freight yard, shunting, loading and unloading
wagons, and even setting tasks for the game to accomplish. "Yardmaster"
will also include a "save in progress" option so you can go back and
finish what you were doing at a later date. While the other features of
"Yardmaster" look quite promising, the save function is really something
that should have been included with the initial game, as without it you
soon tire of doing the same old thing over and over again, and the game
can rapidly become quite boring.
Overall I found the sim to be quite good. It's certainly got very good graphics and is well laid out. However there are a few features that certainly make you feel the game is missing something if it's to keep your interest for a long period of time. It looks like future modules will end up giving the game the features it's missing, as well as a lot more allowing for a very in-depth virtual model railway simulation - but we can't help but be a bit disappointed with the initial release from a long-term perspective.
Links:
Auran, Trainz' designer:
Strategy First, Trainz' publisher; go here to download the demo:
www.auran.com
www.strategyfirst.com
Copyright © 2002 by
Nels Anderson.
All Rights Reserved.