Railroad Tycoon 3

"A Stunning Example of How Games Should Be..."

Introduction

Railroad Tycoon has a small, and much overlooked history. The first of the series was Railroad Tycoon (makes sense doesn't it!). Along the road of evolution and Railroad Tycoon II came along. Nothing revolutionary here, just what you would expect if RRT1 had been released several years later.

Now, we have been given the incredible creation of Railroad Tycoon III. A true gaming masterpiece, and something that I expect will stay dust free for several years to come. Along the evolutionary chain one more step, and we have advanced to full 3D, 5.1 Surround Sound etc. But thats not all. Everything you could expect from an award winning game such as Halo, Black & White, and even games like Total Annihilation. Though I wouldn't quite put it with all time classics like Super Mario and Pokemon. Anyway, I expect you want to hear more about RRT3! Read on...

Gameplay

Gameplay is completely flawless in this game. The learning curve takes about 10 mins to climb, with the aid of two very helpful tutorials. Especially useful for newcomers to the series or genre. The difficulty curve, however, is at a nice constant all the way through. You really have to play like you mean it if you want to win. You can get a bronze, silver or gold medal on each mission depending on how well you do (same as RRT2). You take the role of a leading tycoon manager. You don't have a particular name, since you're constantly changing between real life scenarios. For example, you'll have to build your way from Sacremento, California all the way across to Salt Lake City in just one Scenario. In another you'll be uniting the industrial capitals of England - London and Edinburgh. Other scenarios include Boston - Buffalo, Germany (no specific towns) and France (no specific towns). All of these form the main campaign. You have 3 difficulties to play, - Easy, Normal and Hard. There are a couple of other types of game, including a Skirmish type, and a single random generated Scenario type (I haven't played these so I can't really comment on them).

You can control every imaginable aspect of railway, and even set up industries such as Brewery, Toy Factory and Paper Mill. You get to choose between loads of different types of train. You can build hotels, taverns, post offices loads of stuff. You control the economy aswell. Building industries and using your railways to import the raw materials.

Every aspect of gameplay is complete. It's really incredible how much they've done in this one game.

10/10

Story

The story in this isn't really a story at all. It just a handful (albeit a very big hand) of real-life railway scenarios put into a game. Its beautifully done though, with videos and narration before every scenario, setting the scene, and telling you what you have to do. The way they've implemented it is good aswell. You've visited a museum, and you can look at each railway display and play the appropriate scenario. Very original and well created. I can't give them 10 points for story on this one, since they haven't made one of their own. This is NOT one of those games where you think 'Oh, but they should have done that.'

But they recieve 9 out of 10 points for story, since they've done it really aswell as could be done.

9/10

Graphics

Overall, the graphics are very good. A scaling technology is used similar to that of Black & White. So you can zoon all the way out from a single town to an entire country or even continent in some scenarios. All of the objects are 3D, except the vast swarms of trees (no computer would be able to handle that many 3D trees). They blend in well with the rest (much like the 2D items in The Sims, and the 3D buildings). The entire world is engulfed in rain and thunderstorms at some points, aswell as good 'ol sunlight. (If you've played this game you'll get the joke). There are several clipping errors at times, and the track you place can sometimes end up going vertically in some circumstances.

Graphics gets a 8 out of 10 because of the glitches. This could be raised to a 10 if they fix it in a later version of the game/patch.

8/10

Sound

The audio in this game is really well suited. You get immersed in it sometimes. The game can get addictive, and I think its mostly to do with the music. The naration at the beginning of each scenario is really well done too. I couldn't ask for any more in a game's music. Though it doesn't quite reach the morrowind theme music quality, and it can't quite beat the good 'ol Total Annilation music.

The music is really good. They couldn't have done much more to improve it here. Beats 999/1000 games for music.

10/10

Play Time/Replayability

I've probably played the game for about 36 hours now. I'm less than half way through. I haven't even touched multiplayer yet!!! Though I doubt the level of replayability in the scenarios, the rest of the game will never get old. The three difficulty settings will help you to get the most out of the campaign scenarios, and you can expect a real challenge here on Hard.

As good as it can get for a Simulation/RTS, still not quite the level of games like Total Annilation and Super Mario. Gets a well deserved 9 out of 10 here.

9/10

Overall

This game is just a masterpiece. From out of nowhere, a completely un-hyped game smashes the 90% barrier in all the gaming magazines I've read. Though, I personally feel they could have added a few more percents, they are probably being unbiased. I can't help liking Simulation/RTS games so I'm giving this a 10/10 overall. I expect everyone could give it at least 9/10, but in my opinion this game's so good it gets the gold badge, the 10/10 award! You couldn't ask more from a game like this. I can't help but feel I've been harsh in some areas. I probably would have given it 10/10 in all areas. But for the sake of a fair review, it lost a mark in a couple of places.

10/10 - A TRUE Masterpiece

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 11/03/03