Transport Tycoon 2 is finally here!!!!! - Chris Sawyer's Locomotion.

[MartyG]

Thanks for the impressions. At ?15 it was too much of a bargain to ignore, so Play are currently packing this up to send to me. Very much looking forward to playing it.

The AI was always better at laying tracks because it didn't have to use the interface. I found the trick to winning was to get the lucrative hauling contracts. Passengers didn't earn you very much in comparison.

[Super Stu]

Heh, you cheats I guess we all eventually learned wee tricks, like slapping down bigger stations than you actually need, lest the computer build nearby and you're unable to expand it later on to start running passengers/mail, or similar. I remember doing the same with airports too - wee villages as yet untouched by the modern world suddenly found themselves immediately adjacent to an airport bigger than them.

Ah, such fond memories of this game - I think locomotion will have to wait though, not sure I can dedicate the time it deserves, at the moment :/

edit - ah lads, meant to ask: what's the music like? I recall having just gotten hold of an AWE32 (anyone remember those 180 quid surfboards? ) and was absolutely staggered by TT and its midi music. Was a bit better than Adlib, like :P

[JibberX]

There's a demo, a very very short demo available too.

[ryodi]

Play.com have just dispatched mine. My PC just about meets the specs listed so I hope it will work. I have a fixation with building huge rail networks, even trying A Train 6 on the PS2 but finding the control system too cumbersome. I hope I will be able to construct a massively long tunnel stretching the entire length of the world map and cost an inordinate amount of money with the train taking months to traverse it. Oh, happy days.

[ascender]

Is there a knack to rail-building to save money? I frequently want to have a few trains sharing a large section of track, but for the life of me can't figure it out...

[Super Stu]

I recall adding a railway junction (where the track splits off and the other train parks up whilst waiting for the other to pass) at a point where the two trains would likely intercept (as to minimise waiting times).

I think.

[MartyG]

That's about right. The trick was getting the signalling to work properly, otherwise the trains use to collide, or end up deadlocked. It wasn't particularly easy to do, hopefully Locomotion has improved on the original.

[JibberX]

Played the bloody Tutorial island for about 3-4 hours last night. It's just an immense game, the upgrades since TTD are really good.

[Ciaran]

You can download the full game from http://www.trygames.com/ and then activate it for $25.

[MikeRox]

best game ever! Now I've finished burnout 3 I can focus all my efforts into this. Don't think it'll swallow 3 years of my life like the original did tho. Still damn good, nice to see so many other ppl into it too, I thought I was jus a sad bastard.. well I am, but I'm not alone :P

[ascender]

Forgot to say, I picked it up for ?19.99 from Game. Who warned me that PC games are non-returnable at the moment.

[MikeRox]

wtf wud anyone wanna return this anyway? 1 man has single handedly made the game of 2004 tbh

[ryodi]

My copy from Play arrived this morning. Amazingly is works fine on my minimum spec pc but I dread to think how it will run when I get a massive transport system going. Just had a quick go and at the moment I don't like how the train stations and other depots are built. It was starting to get addictive when I stopped playing (I do have other things to do) but I look forward to playing it tonight. Hopefully without bankrupting my company in the process.

[Judge]

My copy turned up this morning as well.



Narrow-guage railways!

He bothered to add narrow-guage railways!

I think I'm going to be playing this A LOT over the next few months.

[MartyG]

Mine didn't. Bah. I think I'll have to go kick the postman.

I have played the demo, I'm not overly keen on the way you lay tracks and roads - clearly it's the roller coaster tycoon engine, for which it worked well but here the distances you have to circumvent are much greater. A combination of the old system and new would have been better. Also, it looks like signalling still isn't that great, so sharing train tracks still isn't going to be that easy