Railroad Tycoon II: Gold Edition

"Railroads have become obsolete, which is fitting because this game is obsolete as well"

OPENING STATEMENT
It is not as if the Sega Dreamcast suffers from a wealth of strategy games. As far as I know, Railroad Tycoon II is the only one. Of course, when the only strategy game for a console is as awful as Railroad Tycoon II is, you are bound to run into some problems, and these problems could have, in the long run, attributed to the Dreamcast’s untimely death.

GAMEPLAY--2
It is the 1800s. You are a railroad tycoon, expanding your empire at an alarming rate. If you do not build these much needed railroads under extreme time constraints, then your competitors will. And if your competitors build them before you, then you will go broke, and you can no longer add ‘Railroad Tycoon’ as a suffix after your name. Yeah, like I care. You need to make the rich guy get richer, and not give a damn about the poor railroad scrubs, the conductors, drivers, and workmen, if you want to succeed. Granted, the game is so awful, you will not want to play it for long enough to succeed, but on the off chance that you do, just make all of your decisions like the rich person you are to be helping, so as to end the misery as soon as possible.

Before each level, you will be given a series of goals to be carried out, for a bronze ranking, a silver ranking, and for a gold ranking. They will also tell you the year that these goals must be completed by, which is never as far away as it may seem. It is also a good idea to make money to carry out these goals. So, you need to lay tracks, and build stations, and purchase trains to make some deliveries to give you the money that you will need to lay more tracks, and build more stations, and buy more trains to make more money. Typical level goals have you reaching a distant city by such and such a year, and carrying a certain amount of trainloads of goods. Of course, there are other ways to help your money total skyrocket as well. A good way to get lots of money is to build a passenger train depot near a housing development, and then buy that station all of the amenities: restaurants, telegraph wires, post offices, and a host of other developments. The gameplay itself had great potential, the developers just did a horrible job of carrying it out, making it far too complex for the console market. That description that I gave you, that is a vague, simplistic definition of the impossible number of tasks you have, and options you can carry out.

GRAPHICS--4
Consoles and PC games have very distinct graphical styles. Console graphics are usually more whimsical, and less realistic, while PC games pride themselves on gritty realism. Both graphical styles usually have their own pros and cons as well. Well, Railroad Tycoon II was lucky enough to have the graphical problems of both evident in its little GD-Rom. First of all, there are some spots with rather bad polygon tearing. The objects are so small, so the tearing seems small, but it is there nonetheless. Also, apparently, the PC can handle details better than the Dreamcast, because the detail level could have really been improved. The buildings are by far and away what looks the worst in Railroad Tycoon II. Basically, these buildings look like simple squares, with the occasional stray line drawn in for detail. These building graphics look like those of a first or second generation PlayStation game, not a third or fouth generation Dreamcast game. For shame, Microsoft, for shame.

MUSIC--2
SOUND--7
This music is simply awful. It sounds like bad country and bluegrass music got married and had this bratty child. The little guitar solos really are not well done, and they sound like they picked up a random guitar player from the area outside the Metrodome after a Minnesota Twins or Minnesota Vikings played, put a quarter in their case, and said “Play some random music.” And, to make matters worse, it sounds like they did not pick one of the players who were actually talented. They picked the bad one, the one that has only a few sympathy coins in their case. So, anyway, if you like odd guitar music that sounds like it is from Kentucky and Tennessee, then Railroad Tycoon II is a wonderful way to listen to some very bad tunes that you cannot hear anywhere else.

The sound effects, though, are much better. You get to hear some train whistles and such, and the menu noises, although difficult to explain, fit in quite well with the railroad motif. The building noises sound like construction, which is a wonderful fit as well. These sound effects are not spectacular, or overwhelming, and you may not even remember them when you are done playing, but at least you will not remember them being horrible like you will remember everything else about Railroad Tycoon II. These audio effects simply sum up to be a solid, but not flashy, effort.

CONTROL--1
Never before have I so badly wanted to give a game a negative rating in a category. Railroad Tycoon II is probably the worst controlling game in history, and after tens of thousands of games, that is a dubious distinction indeed. Sure, the game may have controlled like a dream on the computer, with a mouse and mouse pad to use, but trying to move that tiny controller, with the sensitive Dreamcast controller, well that’s enough to make you want to gouge your eyes out. You just cannot easily make the minute movements needed to lay track. I always was trying to be as precise as possibly, and suddenly, wham! The track was laid halfway across the screen when I only needed one more tile with track upon it to finish off the line. Even navigating the menus is pretentious when you are not using a mouse in Railroad Tycoon II. If you have the patience and the mastery of fine movements with your Dreamcast controller’s analog stick, more power to you.

FUN--1
I have said before, the concept had potential. Of course, the poor translation, and mainly the poor control, completely destroy any potential for fun whatsoever. Also, internet play could have been a decent addition if it were included, but, once more, it was not. Although I am still unsure how it would have been included, it would have at least made the title a bit more fun to play, unless, of course, you played against people on computers. That would not be fun, especially because you would be so decimated, due to the mouse being able to harness Railroad Tycoon II so much better than the Dreamcast’s controller. The repetition in the level objectives really begins to drag on the game’s fun as well. And, potential really only makes people in the NBA Draft.

CHALLENGE--HIGH
I am fairly certain that a great deal of the difficulty in Railroad Tycoon II has to do with how difficult it is for the game to control. But, another great portion of the difficulty has to do with the very short time limits. I really have trouble carrying out the bronze objectives within all of the stages, let alone the silver or gold objectives. The time also moves quite fast as well, so you really need to move fast, to complete those purchases, and carry out objectives.

REPLAY VALUE--LOW
There is really no need to play through Railroad Tycoon II more than once. In fact, there is really no need to play through Railroad Tycoon II once, so obviously the game is going to get a low replay value rating. The game is just to frustrating, and the lack of multiplayer, or online, play hurt this already low rating even more. The combination of all of these things, plus once more the horrible control, average out to make Railroad Tycoon II one of the least replayable games on the Dreamcast.

PROS
*A very difficult strategy game to those who need a challenge.
*Sound effects were fairly impressive.
*The potential was there.

CONS
*The worst control of any home console game ever.
*Among the Dreamcast games with the lowest replayability.
*The music is a horrible combination of styles.

CLOSING STATEMENT
Even though it is the only real strategy game on the Dreamcast, Railroad Tycoon II is a dud that should be avoided at all costs. If you only avoid it for one reason, make it the control. If you avoid it for more than one reason, avoid it for everything else about the game. It is that bad.

OVERALL--2

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 07/06/01, Updated 07/18/01