Railroad Tycoon II

Dec 4th, 2008 by cm1

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In an industry now thriving on “me too” games, it defies belief that there have been so few previous entries in the “build and manage” genre started by the original Railroad Tycoon. At least half of these have come from Maxis.

Railroad Tycoon II by PopTop Software puts you in charge of a vast railroad empire in the persona of one of the legendary tycoons or government figures of the day. The train and station limits from Railroad Tycoon are gone. You can build stations and buy trains to your heart’s content without bumping into an artificial limit. To the best of my knowledge, no one has exceeded the train/station limit, if there is one, relieving one of the most frustrating features of the original Railroad Tycoon when playing on large maps.

There is an amazing number of maps. There are 12 stand-alone maps plus over a dozen different maps in the campaign scenarios. Along with multiple maps of North America and Europe are maps of China, South America, India, Australia, and Japan. Russia is the only major area of the globe not covered by the game in some fashion. Given the complete flexibility of the editor and the easy import of graphic files, user maps and scenarios are popping up on the Web almost daily. The game includes one 18-scenario campaign, but more can be created using the editor.

The graphics are wonderful. At high levels of zoom the trains look photo-realistic. As time passes, the various cars (passenger, mail, coal, etc.) change their appearance to match the era. Stations have architectural styles to match the geographic area. Smoke belches from the engines, trails from homes, shoots out of steel mills. Visually, trains remain straight and level instead of following the track uphill or around a tight curve, which takes some getting used to, but watching a 4-8-8-4 Big Boy running at full steam is a glorious experience.

The sound effects are equally stunning. Each structure has its own sound set. Zoom in to hear the cattle lowing at a ranch; zoom out and the sounds blend together from different buildings giving each region a distinctive personality. Train crashes sound appropriately apocalyptic. Sell some stock and a chorus of voices echoes your actions. The music is good enough to stand on its own, and there is a lot of it, though unfortunately it is all North American in style and spirit. Hearing a lonesome harmonica wail while running the British (rail) Empire is a bit off-putting.

PopTop has made the difficult look easy. It produced a sequel that eclipses the original in nearly all aspects. Playing Railroad Tycoon II is an emotional experience bringing back memories of Lionel trains and Christmas mornings long past and staring at Lionel catalogs and dreaming. No more arguments with Mom or your spouse over how much of the house has been taken over by your dream layout or how much money you’ve wasted. With Railroad Tycoon II, all those dreams of childhood can be realized at last.

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