From: cox_m@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games
Subject: Re:A-Train
Date: 28 Dec 1992 21:38:58 GMT
Organization: Wellington City Council (Public Access), Wgtn, Nz
Reply-To: cox_m@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz
NNTP-Posting-Host: kosmos.wcc.govt.nz

I've noticed the A-Train discussion and figured I'd toss this in. It's a
review of the game off a local bulletin board, written by a user. Remember,
I didn't write it so no criticisms/flames/comments please. Anyway, for
what its worth, here we go :
 
[Included file starts]
A-Train.
========
 
        A-Train is the simulation of a railroad empire, with a little
SimCity thrown in for good measure. Maxis seem to produce games of a
similar style with monotonous regularity - first SimCity, then SimEarth,
then SimAnt and now SimTrain, sorry, A-Train. We shall politely ignore
the rather sad "RoboSports" which was merely a weak Laser Squad clone and
which rightly sank into rapid obscurity. Those of you expecting this review
to be a comparison with Railroad Tycoon will be sadly disappointed since
I've never played the game.
 
        As you would expect of a Maxis game, A-Train is a complex beast
with great wads of instructions which are pretty much essential if you
are to get anywhere - or, rather, if you are to get anything done effectively
since there is really nowhere to get to... Presented with a sparsely populated
rural area it is your aim to turn it into a bustling, ecological nightmare of
a city, complete with factories, houses, apartments, and, of course, the odd
train or two. Should you find that too scary, you can take on one of the
preset scenarios where you are required to continue an existing railroad and
bring it to fame and fortune.
 
        A-Train's main screen consists mostly of an isometric view of
your empire with your (and somebody else's) trains chugging around quite
happily on their automated routes. It is your task to lay out the tracks,
set the schedules to ensure the trains don't foul up each other's appointed
tasks, and coerce the populace into building a magnificent city complete
with your mass-transit system pulling commuters to and from their bustling
offices and factories. All this, of course, will take years of building
railroads and financial piracy.
 
        The game essentially comprises three parts - your railroad,
the city, and the money market. To build your empire you obviously need
both rails and stations. Placing stations isn't too vital though a few
surrounding houses and some room to develop helps. A minor flaw in the game
means it is impossible to put stations on tracks of a certain angle making
laying tracks a rather tricky task. Put down two stations, run some track 
between them and voila, you've got yourself a railway. To make things even 
simpler, the game will start you off with a free station and some track 
linked into the main intercity line. Trains on this intercity line go, 
obviously, between cities. Although your map shows only your own city, 
resources and passengers can be brought in from, and taken to cities outside
simply by throwing one of your own trains onto this line. Getting your trains
going is simplicity itself - just buy one and chuck it onto some track. Off 
it goes merrily on its own. By using the Schedule window you can tell your 
trains where to go, and when. Freight trains carry resources between 
stations (resources must be close to a station to be useful) and passenger 
trains carry people (obviously) to and from stations. All of this is done,
of course, for a fee.
 
        A problem with the scheduling becomes apparent when you have
freight trains taking resources to outlying stations on a loop track.
The freight trains will alternately pick up and drop resources at each
station, making shipping large amounts of freight accurately a painful
task - each train must be stopped and repositioned after delivery - unless
you have bought a train which can run a non-stop service and skip the stations
you want it to. Even so, shipping freight is a tedious and intensive task.
Also, trains are unable to change direction at stations and must go to the
end of the track before reversing. This can make scheduling and passenger
lines a nightmare of loops, switches, and track. For a train sim like this,
this is really unforgivable.
 
        Once you've got the basics of your railroad laid out, you can
then start building your city. In true SimCity style you can build
factories, residential apartments, shopping centres, golf courses, ski
resorts and much more. Obviously, you'll need factories for resources (if
you can't freight them in from other cities), and your workers need somewhere
to live. Not only can you build these structures, though, you can even sell
them off as going concerns to somebody else to run - a nice way to dump a
factory that is losing more money than your other factories can make.
As the city builds (and some buildings will appear automatically,
after all, it isn't just your company with an interest here), you can
toss in the golf courses to boost the population's interest and spending.
You can even make extra cash in the skiing season with the ski-resorts, if
you've the trains to take the capacity crowds. Remember, you're here to make
as much money as possible. Make 50 million in cold cash and you "win" the 
game. Making a profit, however, is difficult to say the least. Your railroad
costs a fortune to run each day, and unless you've set your schedules and
tracks near perfectly you'll find your cash dwindling with your only resort
being to sell some assets or borrow from the bank. Because making money is
so difficult, and the fact that the game takes ages and ages to build anything
bigger than a 3 hovel town, it becomes boring and frustrating very quickly.
 
        Which leaves us with the money market. Your prime concern here is
the buying and selling of real estate. To build something you need the land
to build it on. You also need spare land for resource hoarding and of course
land for the railroad itself. Like a true land developer, buying up all the
land your railroad is about to make worth millions is first on the agenda. You
can then sell it back to the peasants at a very healthy profit. You can also
borrow some cash from the bank (for a fee) if you need a little to tide you
over until next month, or a bigger loan for a shiny new loco. And of course
the government wants its pound of flesh in taxes. There are reports for 
seeing how well (or badly) you are doing as well. These reports were
obviously designed by a computer programmer since they lump in all the
revenue and capital expenditures together making it hard to see if you are
making a true profit. This also affects your taxes since a healthy capital
gain is taxed the same as normal revenue. It's enough to make a true
accountant reach for his SSAPs and his tax legislation. This may sound like
pedantic whining, but with so much of your game dependant upon your finances,
making decisions becomes a tricky and occassionally a hit or miss affair. A
properly designed financial section here would have improved your chances
no end. Next time, Maxis, get an accountant to do the accounting...
Lastly, and leastly, A-Train boasts a stock market with detailed information
and history charts for each stock. Here's your chance to play Wall Street.
Well, it would be, but its pointless really. Because the game is a train
and railroad sim at heart, the financial market model they use must be
restricted to save memory and overhead. The result is laughable, despite the
manual's claims at a complex and accurate fiscal model. Although
conforming to (very) basic financial principles (you can't predict the
market from the charts, for example), determining anything resembling
market analysis variables (such as basic alpha and beta values), is impossible
and real investment decisions go out the window. Maxis would have been better
off leaving this section out entirely rather than attempt to make the game
look more sophisticated than it is.
 
        So much for the game itself. Graphically, you can choose between
the slower, flickering "hi-res" version or the faster, rock-steady "lo-res"
version. Basically, in hi-res you can see more area on your map, and the
game's aspect ratio is right. In "lo-res" everything looks distinctly
stretched. The graphics are quite decent, looking like buildings and
trees and so forth, but trains jerk along the rails in stops and
starts (even when there's no station for miles). Sonically you can have
the short, repetitive music going if you like (it rapidly asks for a
large hammer through the speaker...) and the effects are limited to feeble
train noises when your trains are on screen. About all you could logically
have, I guess, but still unimpressive (a bit like most golf games, really).
 
        So is it worth the effort? A-Train is undoubtedly a deep and
complex game which might be of interest to train spotters and budding
tycoons or politicians, but its very complexity makes initially getting 
anywhere a slow and rather dull process. Its slow start and rigid rules
and requirements mean you end up watching a couple of trains chug around
for hours before your city really starts to grow. Coupled with some annoying
disk accessing for floppy users (you can install it on your hard disk if
you have one), the inaccurate (and misleading) financial data and you
have a game which really is for true SimCity fans only.
 
Graphics    : 74%  - Small or stretched, take your pick. They aren't bad
                     though and suit the game.
Sonics      : 36%  - Some bad music and rare spot effects. About all
                     they could have put in though...
Playability : 67%  - Its complexity overwhelms, though the tutorial
                     helps to some extent.
Lastability : 46%  - Becomes rather tedious, unless you really enjoy
                     trainspotting.
 
Overall     : 53%  - For real SimCity fans only.

[Included file ends]
 
Like I said, I didn't write it, but it may be of some use to those of you
interested (I haven't seen the game either... :-) )