Rolling Line
This is the perfect game for a low budget model railroad enthusiast.
I absolutely love this game. I’m a big model railroad enthusiast, and I enjoy running trains at both my model railroad club or just a shitty oval on my bedroom floor. I’ve always wanted to have a proper model layout but never had the resources or space to make one. This game solves all of that.
I originally found out about this game from an Instagram post from the developer. after reading up about it i was instantly interested in the game i bought it only a few days later. My first few layouts were a bit to big or detailed for my shitty old laptop, but i still enjoyed making all of them.
– Real player with 3203.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Simulation VR Games.
now i play this thing on pc
tldr at the bottom go look
in summary
there are a few bugs. there are so few i will list them here:
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faulty connections of trains causing derailments (cars merging into each other then disconnecting themselves from the rest of the train) -
slight studder of each train car when moving (noticeable with long trains looking from the end of the long train)
-draw distance
- clicking on load game makes the menu ginormous so you cant load a game (for me at least)
– Real player with 182.2 hrs in game
Diesel Railcar Simulator
Update: Now, after my 34ish hours in game, I am even more confident to say that this may well be the best train sim on the market. I don’t know if I could even go back to TSW after playing this. This is a true simulator that has all the right priorities in the right places and I hope that the game will continue to grow for a very long time.
This game is truly a hidden gem, much like Derail Valley. In the 8 hours I’ve spent with the game since purchasing it yesterday, I’ve realized just how much better it is then big name train sims like TSW and TS2020 etc. And it is still in early access unlike the big names. 8 hours is all it took to realize how much better it is compared to my probably 300 some odd hours in TSW. Much of the satisfaction likely comes from the fact that the trains here need constant attention and adjustment. Where as in something like TSW you just throttle up and acknowledge the alerter every 60 or 90 seconds. (If you even play with the alerter or other safety systems active. If you don’t then TSW is literally throttle up to win). This game also comes with a massive amount of content, (3 different maps and loads of different timetables and jobs) and you gain access to all of this simply by paying the base price of the game. No paid DLC or micro transactions here. There is a bit of a learning curve, since as far as I can tell there is either easy mode or advanced mode with no in between. And easy mode is quite easy. Up arrow makes the train go forward, and down arrow applies the brakes. All of the things that go into making these movements are completely automated. Advanced mode is the opposite. You will need to manage all of the train controls on your own with no assistance. I’d recommend only a few routes on easy mode before stepping up to the plate and taking complete control over your train since this is where the real satisfaction is. And the game has an excellent tutorial system for holding your hand for the first few hours, reminding you what to do next. Soon you will know what needs to be done and can disable the tutorial system and drive alone. The physics are quite fun as well. And these are real physics. As far as I know and have seen the train itself is really bobbing and swaying as you go down the line, rather then artificial sway through camera effects. Overall it’s been an excellent game thus far. I do have one thing that I do not like, however it is quite minor. In game the tutorial system is actually made up of multiple toggle boxes, which is great. You can use the assists that you want and turn off the assists that you don’t. The more assists that you use, the more of a overall score deduction you take. This is all fine, except for the speed. I feel that the speed indicator on the screen should be a freebie with no point deduction. I played with it off once and the speedometer in the train is a little hard for me to read due to its size. But at the end of the day points are just for your own bragging rights to yourself and really seem to only be implemented so you can challenge yourself to get a better score on the same run. So by no means is it a big deal.
– Real player with 174.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Simulation Driving Games.
I’m reviewing the early access version. Even though some planned features are not yet implemented already this looks and works as fully finished product.
This game simulates diesel train operations in England around 60-ties, so one may expect left side driving with classic semaphores. I don’t really know English rail but it seems that everything is modeled as it should be. We have markings for speed limits, yellow distant signals and red semaphores. Junctions work as intended so the signal shows which branch we are going to take. Therefore the game is realistic, allowing for true hudless driving (as long as we know the route - where are the stations and speed limits). This is amazing. Physics is good, the brakes are modeled very nicely - for example longer train will cause the brake to respond with a lag. Sounds are nice. These old diesel trains have mechanical gearbox, so driving is a little more challenging than with modern train - we need to switch gears like in a car. At this point my feeling is that the gearbox is not yet fully modeled as it should be - we can make mistakes, like stopping with high gear or switching gears with power on and nothing wrong happens. Hopefully this will be corrected with full game release. AI drivers are not scripted, they try to react to what they actually see. It’s really a good simulator for a hardcore simmer like me.
– Real player with 169.9 hrs in game
Train Frontier Classic
This is a completely awesome release of a former xbox 360 game. If you played it on there, you should definitely play it on PC. Reasons? Multiplayer is doubled; Now eight players can share a layout. There appears to be NO MEMORY LIMIT for placing of tracks and objects - I am guessing that this is entirely dependent upon your system memory. The only limit seems to be the soze of the ‘world’, and that seems t be about the same size as it always was.
If you haven’t played this befoe and like fun train games, then give this a go. Its not a serious sim, but it is tremendous fun, and some truly awesome ‘layouts’ can be created amd shared with those that ‘visit’ your layout. Loads of locos and rolling stock included, but you must make your consist before you take to the track, and you cannot currently uncouple your consist, and can only one one train in solo mode - however, the playing fun of this is definitely in the Multiplayer Mode, and in teh hours you can spend building your layouts, which is both fun and easy. Five stars out of five!
– Real player with 269.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Simulation Early Access Games.
EDIT: This game has been abandoned, buy at your own risk.
[This Games 3rd Review]
As Somone Who Has A Love for City Builders and Trains, This is great, and The Best Train Builder/Ridder So Far I can tell, Also Looks Great, Good Assets, Good Trains (Could Be More), No Lag i7/8gb-ram, Fun and Adictive, Im Building a World Where Trains Go Thru Cities, Another Great Thing is The Building, And Easy!
+PROS
Trains/Assets and All that: 8.5/10 - Could Be More, But Its Early Acsess so It Doesn’t Bother Me :)
– Real player with 56.9 hrs in game
Train Sim World® 2
This game a fantastic simulator with obviously it’s drawbacks as with all games.
The aspects of the game that I enjoy are the ability to operate trains, being able to change services and gain experience.
Pros:
1. 24 hour timetable meaning that there are always services to operate no matter what time of the day
2. Performance improvements from the previous game
3. Decent tutorials to get you started (Useful for the more complicated locomotives).
4. After finishing a service there’s usually plenty of more services to operate which makes sustains the enjoyment for longer
– Real player with 1073.5 hrs in game
This simulation is brilliant. I bought both TS2022 and TSW2 to compare, and find myself spending all my time in TSW2. Why? In TS2022 you ARE the train; in TSW2 you’re an Engineer driving a train - so you can walk around on the train, move to different locos on foot, and explore the world. The graphics are great, sounds very good, and this game is challenging.
While an in-game tutorial is included (I recommend you play through all of it, in sequence), you will need to check out various manuals on the Dovetail forum and elsewhere for tips/tricks. You WILL get stuck - maybe on a steep gradient. And you’ll probably lose control of a train going downhill. And, at times, a loco will simply stall, and you’ll lose power and need to go manually restart a loco.
– Real player with 69.0 hrs in game
Train Life: A Railway Simulator
Train games are not exactly a highly competitive market so most are downright garbage. Train Life is not one of my favorites for good reason. A couple of the games I prefer are as follows with the first being a bit complicated to learn as it’s Korean and you need to make notes about what certain things are and how to do things. The second is designed for multiplayer, but, I and many others play solo. The first is Hmmsim Metro. The second is RAILROADS Online! Check those for better games.
A large update came out. I have made a couple deliveries in Germany so far and glitches have been much better. Animals don’t have faces glues to tracks. I’ll keep editing this as I play more and if it deserves it will change to voting up.
– Real player with 139.0 hrs in game
OK OK… First of all let me say I rated this title as “recommend” only because I think it has huge potential and, let’s face it… if $15 bucks is a deal breaker you’re in the wrong hobby. I usually don’t pay for something I haven’t gotten (my lesson was paying a landscaper for a whole job he was to do on a Friday and by Monday morning I discovered that he closed his doors and skipped town with my money) but I’m gonna make an exception in this case. For two reasons… first - It’s worth the $15 as is! Second - it allows the devs to buy groceries on their way home tonight and not starve before they finish the game.
– Real player with 34.9 hrs in game
Trainz Railroad Simulator 2019
If you are like me and have minimal skills in being able to paint and/or draw well in the real world and am gutted because of it, Trainz has opened that locked door. There is a section called “Surveyor” which is an editor. Here you can build a world that is only limited by your imagination.
The tools available for this do have a small learning curve, but very quickly a world can easily be started as you learn. Mess up, no problem there is the undo button, bulk replace, or you can start fresh. Even if you do not like trains generally, you can still build a themed world using aeroplanes, helicopters, cars, buses, boats, trotting horses pulling wagons and more. The world is your oyster in surveyor.
– Real player with 531.1 hrs in game
I’ve been with the franchise since I got my first copy of TRS 2004 back in around ‘06? (I’ve owned ‘06, Classics, ‘10, ‘12, TANE, and now this regional version). EDIT: I’ve since learned that trainz is a VERY CPU and GPU hungry simulator (makes sense). I thought 16 GB of DDR3 ram at 2666 MhZ with a 4.4 GhZ quad core intel CPU would suffice for the data base repair but I have a lot of content and this caused crashing issues when doing a Database repair. If you are having issues with it crashing, make your page file bigger. That seems to solve the rebuild issue I was having. Stability could be related to the variety of items in a route (I will have to test more to find out). Future patches will hopefully provide better stability and reliability.
– Real player with 284.5 hrs in game
World of Subways 3 – London Underground Circle Line
This game accurately simulates the driving of a tube in London Underground’s Circle Line. I will list the PROS, the NEUTRAL and the CONS, based on my experience with the game.
For the PROS, I enlist the following:
-
Graphics - for a 2014 game, the graphics are pretty well designed. With a good computer, the whole experience is enhanced because of it;
-
Simulation - the fact that you’re given pre-service tasks, like turn on your train from cold/dark, up until the strict and challenging timetable, gets you fully immersed on it;
– Real player with 26.7 hrs in game
A very nice representation of the London Underground Circle Line. Trundling around it is good fun. The graphics are generally good and the driving aspect seems realistic.
That said, it is still a simulation game by a company who clearly don’t have English as a first language, making the missions dull, the tutorial a bit awkward and some of the in-game information a bit odd. I’m not sure if the stats actually work because I seem to get the same score every time.
Setting up the train is an annoyance in the early stages, but it soon becomes second nature. Once you’re rolling it’s fairly straightforward and the HUD’s provide useful info that without them, it’d be a much harder sim.
– Real player with 17.4 hrs in game
Trainz: A New Era
Supported this sim with the kickstarter and have not regretted it one bit. Have seen a lot of changes (for the better) during the beta time to retail release. Some of these are the amount of bugs and other quirkiness that have been fixed. eg. the database hanging and not finishing the repair, numerous random crashes, graphic glitches etc.
Settings should be set realisticly for the pc that is used. As with any game, each one is different and what one game will run on low/normal/high/ultra does not mean the other will as well as no game is identical. The sim will make the pc work, but a lot depends how much content is in a map, the pc’s hardware, good air flow and how well maintained the computer is and of course the users expectations.
– Real player with 1126.2 hrs in game
This is a quick review after only using TANE for a couple of days.
My main interest is in building my own layouts and operating trains under a free roam environment.
I purchased TS2015 approx 1 year ago - and though impressed, it didn’t seem suitable for free roam.
I reloaded TS2015 again a month or so ago - and tried again. On forums I saw some suggestion as to how one could switch from one train to another - it was cumbersome and didn’t work. I asked directly on the TS2015 forum and no-one could give me an answer.
– Real player with 533.2 hrs in game
Train Sim World® 2020
This is a genuine review from someone who actually works in the rolling stock industry.
Dovetail, please read this. I really want to make this game great.
So, conclusion first.
Does this game have loads of potential?
YES!
With the diverse functionality of its engine, it is highly improbable that the game would ever fail.
! Hell I am more than happy to implement this simulator into our driver training simulation cabins, the graphics and details of those blasphemous atrocities needs to be updated fast.
– Real player with 936.6 hrs in game
Train Sim World. A new sim by a company with a complacent attitude despite the chance of a clean slate being presented to them. TSW is a new modern train sim and calling it a sim is stretching it ALOT at this time for those with a interest in the railway using the UE4 to bring an immersive experience of not only driving trains but to ride as a passenger, walk around the environment to a degree or even fulfil you’re inner hobo and hang onto a freight as it goes on it’s way in perfectly clear weather to blizzards at midnight with lovely graphics and visuals.
– Real player with 421.5 hrs in game
Trainz™ Simulator 12
I have been playing simualtors like these for many years, so here’s my review:
This game is Alright, it’s very balanced in nature, quite flexible orders and rule system, while having a mid-range graphics capabilities, with very friendly, yet stupid AI system.
The forums have been very good to me over the years.
CMP is alright for keeping track of content, it is very friendly for the beginner for managing and sorting content, but it gets less and less flexible as your experiance grows.
The thing I like most aobut CMP, would be its “Content Creator Plus”, it gives you the tools to create content pretty nicely, CMP also sorts content for you into diferent catagories
– Real player with 1335.2 hrs in game
I have spent many hours happily playing this game, but I can’t really recommend it as a “game” because of a couple things:
- Framerate, audio, entire application responsiveness takes a massive hit without severely limiting texture qualities and draw distance, making for a high cost to actually take advantage of the game’s optimized graphics options. Two upgraded computers later, I still have to cripple the draw distance and texture quality in order to play without the game regularly freezing up for a few seconds every time a bunch of new content needs to be drawn, such as when you pan the camera around.
– Real player with 267.7 hrs in game