We all know my love of these types of games, and Urban Games was awesome enough to hook me up with a review code for this one.
The idea behind this game is pretty easy, deceptively so. The map is covered in different cities and different businesses. Each city in Transport Fever 2 wants something from these industries, it might be food or construction materials or even liquid gold, I mean of course fuel. You have one job, bring all these things together in the best way possible and make millions.
The problem is, everything is easy when you say at first but actually do it,not so much. You can start basically at any time between 1850 and 2050 and the technology will match. 1850, all you got is his horses and some basic trains. Now do you use trains to get wheat from the farm to a bakery then use some trucks to ship it to a nearby city? How you do things means as much or more than what you do.
My first free play game I had a nice run going. I had 3 trains set up running crude oil to turn it into oil. Then one that ran it up to a fuel depot and turned it into actual fuel to be delivered to a nearby down. Eventually I was making money hand over first and decided I could make more money by upgrading my trains.
This is when I didn’t realize the oil cars I had would transfer to the new train and I went bankrupt. You live and you learn I guess.
That is the basics of the game, how it plays is what matters. I am happy to say it plays beautifully. As much as I love these games historically they don’t play well on consoles, which has been changing lately thankfully. Transport Fever manages to nail putting the controller in this format. I never felt like I was held back not having a mouse. If you do feel that way, good news, that’s an option here.
The game looks beautiful as well,more than once I’ve just rode one of my trains and watched the trees or occasional animals go by. In the 1850’s seeing the horses just troy along and the people jumping in and out of the carriages is simply mesmerizing. It doesn’t change with the time either, watching trucks show up to drop off merchandise or pick up a load of logs. It never seems to get old for me.
Normally at this point I would start to wrap things up, but I do want to offer some advice to anyone playing this game. First,start with the campaign. Even if you don’t finish the campaign it acts as the tutorial. It will teach you everything you need to know about getting things set up,setting up lines for your vehicles and what connects to what to make some money.
Second,don’t feel obligated to play on normal or hard. Start in easy and work your way up, even doing things right on the higher difficulties doing it at the wrong time can be just as bad.
And last but not least, money made is based on distance traveled from point A to point B, but done as the crow flies as they say. Going around mountains and such won’t help, the faster you can get from point A to point B the better.
Now those looking for a score in this one, this is probably the best simulation style game like this I have ever played. It’s a 9/10 must buy for fans of the genre. It has vehicles from the US and Asia and Europe, different animals and cities etc. Definitely check this one out. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Savior Gaming 