When I heard about Locomotion for the first time I was thrilled. WOW! Finally after almost 10 years Chris Sawyer made a successor to Transport Tycoon! Without hesitation I’ve downloaded the demo. When the main menu appeared it hit me: “I know that menu… Roller Coaster Tycoon had menu like that!”. I was right… 256 color, slow and crappy RCT game engine. All menus were in fact from RCT, but I thought why not? I launched a tutorial and started looking in options menu. No game settings, no difficulty settings, only sound driver, resolution and keyboard shortcuts, all the same as in RCT. I thought they’re trying to simplify things so I continued the tutorial ‘mission’. >>Audio-Visual Experience: Like I said before, game is made on RCT graphic engine. 256 colors were fine in TTD but it was almost 10 years ago! Why game requirements are PIII 800MHz and 128MB of RAM? It’s even not working smoothly on 1.8GHz Athlon with 256 MB DDR. I like old games, but this is ridiculous. All graphics are 2D, including vehicles, trees, buildings and so on, and if they were more colorful it would be nicer for an eye. All map viewing modes are also from RTC, so you have underground view, height of segments, building transparency etc. Some are useful some not. Map can be turned around by 90 degrees (RCT again), there are 3 or 4 zoom levels, but zoom out will hit performance very hard… Music is categorized by eras like in TTD, but it’s not MIDI anymore, but it at least is not annoying and can be turned of if someone thinks different. Quality of sound is good, vehicles and environment sounds make a nice background . >>Building a network: Connect two cities with a bus line. Okay, let’s do that. Unfortunately all construction also were from RCT. What happened to old TTD like system ? “Oh… Right. RCT engine…” However building straight roads is simple, crossing roads may be annoying. Old TTD system was better about that and long straight lines too. Roads are now divided in dirt roads (cheapest but has lowest maximum speed), roads and one-way lanes that let you build high capacity avenues. Another thing you notice is a small change in bus stops. Now you have Bus Stops and Passenger Terminals, key difference is that bus stops are built on roads like all these local bus lines where bus stops by a sign and passenger terminal is built on a dead-end road. Personally I have no idea what for are terminals if bus stops act in that same way but are cheaper and easier to build (you don’t have to build a dead end for it). Cargo stations are built in the same way as passenger terminals, also it is now possible to have multiple terminals one by another and they will act as a single station. Next task was a railroad line and that is what really makes me mad… Building a single line is a piece of cake, but when it comes to junctions and more complex routes it wont work. In TTD that was simple mostly because of sharp 90 degrees turns. Locomotion however doesn’t have those. Here 90 deg turn requires 2x2 space, tracks on slopes take 2 blocks long stone bridges (say what ??). That’s right… Now you can build high bridges over canyons and even over cities if you can afford them, but along came a bug: slopes may be built only with stone bridge which has low maximum speed of train (50kmh or so) and like I said before, it takes 2 block long for every 1 block up. Level tracks allow using other bridge types (with higher or even unlimited train speed), but they can’t turn or join with each other (with one exception). Signals are acting exactly the same as in TTD so you have to-way signal, allowing trains to go in both ways thru and you have one-way signals that prevent trains from getting back. Useful for traffic management. Whole railway system is divided into 3 basic categories: 1) railroad (which is divided into normal, overhead electrified, 3rd rail electrified); 2) narrow railroad; 3) streetcar rails (these can be also built along roads). Air and sea transport is the same as in TTD: you need 2 at least airports for air transport route and at least 2 docks that ‘can see’ each other for sea route. >> Vehicles: Unlike TTD, here are no depots or anything like it. You just buy a vehicle (bus, truck, train or whatever) place it on a map, set it route and press “GO” button. It’s that simple. Unfortunately no depots means that now you must do all these things that usually depots would do for you. In practice it look like this: You buy a bus, set it route and let it make money. After a few years (10 at maximum) vehicle reliability will be about 5%, witch means it will be breaking down every 5-10 blocks. That’s right! It starts from a bus stop, travels 5 blocks and stops because of brake down, then it starts again and stops again. So what you have to do? YES! Buy a new one! Now when you have 5 buses and a train, it’s easy to maintain, but what happens when your network is expanding? And guess what? You cannot turn off breakdowns like in TTD. Another thing that you notice about vehicles is that they have no even tiny bit of brain. You have to tell them witch way to go. Luckily now it’s possible to set a waypoints, but it’s not a huge help. I’ve noticed that trains plan a route about 5 blocks away, so you may say goodbye to complex train junctions known from TTD. It just wont work. Train will go where it want to go. Same with road vehicles and ships. Only airplanes are working fine, but it’s because the fly over the map without regard for roads/tracks/etc. Good for them… >>Summary: I’m a huge fan of TTD and thought that Locomotion will be a good successor, but I’m VERY disappointed with it. It has whole bag of bugs in it that really make me annoyed. I tied to like this game but it just don’t work. PS: I wrote that I played a demo, that’s true, but I’ve also played full version for couple of hours and noticed that full version has more scenarios and vehicles. Bugs and whole idea are the same.
Other Helpful Reviews for Chris Sawyer's Locomotion
I suspect that many fans of Transport Tycoon will be very disappointed in this game. I was a big fan of the original and really enjoyed the gameplay. I was only fustrated with Locomotion and did not enjoy the gameplay at... Read Full Review
Some bugs and kinda sharp graphics but the bes tycoon after transport tycoon But i'll spend a whole week or two to play this game again and again and again... to build your own empire in L. makes you very calm and makes... Read Full Review
