It is worth the 12 bucks, but the graphics don’t feel improved over the old Microsoft Train Sim.
I am getting tempted to get Train Sim World. which has better graphics.
Dovetail’s game engine is 10 or so years old at this point but I am not sure MSTS really is that similar… (and I really had to hunt around for a half decent MSTS screenshot)
Huh. My TS2020 screenshot doesn’t look that good, and is actually looking more like the first one.
I will try and take a screenshot over the weekend. I won’t be near a PC for a few days.
As a kid, I loved trained. I tried TS a few years ago and guess I don’t “get it”. Drive the train down a track… wheee! Seemed less like a sim and more like nice graphics with little gameplay.
Maybe it’s from an older route, the early stuff in TS2020 is looking very dated now.
e.g. here is Donner Pass from 2012
That could be. I was doing the SD70 demo to learn the train.
I wouldn’t really suggest getting Train Sim World, though. It LOOKS better, but has issues with limited content, many bugs, & it’s quite difficult to make content for (I occasionally make & release reskins for Train Simulator & Trainz FWIW).
Diego
I have heard this as well.
Ah ok, that’s the generic tutorial map. I can see why you weren’t impressed!
Yeah, and unfortunately, it’s my first exposure to the game.
Lmao for my first game in TS I just randomly selected an option from the menu. It started up with me on the platform. I thought I had to walk to get in the train to drive it, but the train drove off… then I realised this was a trainspotter scenario… I had to stand on the platform and take photos of trains going past…
Was there no briefing or whatever telling you what you’re supposed to do?
Of course there was, you score some heroin and try not to OD.
Probably is exactly the same as normal Train Sim but every five minutes you get an audio clip of Portillo saying “My Bradshaw’s guide”
SimRail is looking pretty decent for EA. Would be nice to have some alternatives to TSW’s business model.
Derail Valley (Early Access) is finally due for release in Q2 2023.
It’s not your traditional train sim, with timed stops at platforms and stuff like that. Instead, it falls into a space between American/European Truck Simulator and Snowrunner. You collect jobs of varying tonnages and cargoes, and deliver them to another station,with a sizeable bonus for getting them there on time. The Snowrunner comparison may seem odd, but there’s a lot of load management involved, especially in managing hills and wheel slippage. Essentially there’s a physics-based engine management game to go along with all the basic hauling to keep you on your toes. You can also do jobs in the shunting yard to make money, if you prefer putting wagons together via switching tracks etc. Eventually your earnings go towards buying a bigger train (there were only three locos in EA, more are planned in this next release, I believe).
It’s built from the ground up for VR, but is fine in flatscreen, where I played it. I spent 40 hours with it about six months ago and had a great time. At that time I felt a few things could be fleshed out around the job system (too many deliveries going to the same hub) but at the same time found the treatment of jobs very satisfying despite the limitatons.
The actual train driving is chunky and weighty and generally a delight. I was chugging uphill out of the Harbour area one time, all looked good, and I went to make a cup of tea. When I returned, to my confusion, I was back at the harbour. Basically the train had come to a gradual stop on the slope, and eventually rolled all the way back to my starting destination. Great stuff.
New work in progress video out:
I really enjoyed the moment to moment when I played it about a year ago but I found the career too grindy, as operating costs eat up so much of your income. And if you do derail, you’re set back pretty badly. Hopefully that’s been tweaked for 1.0. There were options to reduce costs but it still felt very slow.
Yeah, while I never felt I wasn’t making money (they may have improved that side of things between our sessions), there was a huge gap between the two diesel locomotives which took a long time to bridge (maybe 25 hours for me). There is a steam train in the cost band between those two, but I skipped that as it was a bit too complicated to learn, in conjunction with what I wanted out of the game at the time. I believe there will be more in-between trains upon next release, which will hopefully help smooth that curve.
When I eventually got to the bigger diesel, it was so powerful I could just do any job at full power, so interest quickly waned after that. I would have liked more, and more challenging, jobs to the mines, rather than mostly between the food and industry centres and the harbour but these were thin on the ground even with the big loco (I had thought more of them might be gated behind it but no). Hopefully they tweak all that.