A-Train - Maxis/Ocean RRP œ34.99-œ40.99
               (Simulation for PC and Amiga)

Having thoroughly enjoyed SimCity and Railroad Tycoon, I was
intrigued to read about Artdink's A-Train which was said to
combine the best features and ideas behind each game. Although the
game was first released in Japan several years ago (where it
reportedly sold in vast numbers), it has been upgraded several
times.  This is its third incarnation and the first time it has
been available over here.

Loading one of the six scenarios provided, you have the
opportunity to develop a city and its associated railroad. Your
ultimate aim is to become a millionaire, but sometimes escaping
bankruptcy will be enough to keep you happy. The scenarios range
from a fledgeling community with no facilities, just a few
residences, to more advanced cities with limited cash at your
disposal.  In each case there will be at least one railway line in
operation already. This line brings building materials and
passengers in from some Never-Never Land off the map, drops them
at a station and trundles off again to ... somewhere else.  These
raw materials are necessary for any construction work you want to
do.  This includes building apartments, factories, commercial
buildings and lease buildings. As the game progresses you'll
probably want to add a golf course, amusement centre, ski resort
and stadium.  These structures can only be built if enough
building materials (shown as blocks) are in the immediate
vicinity. This necessitates building a railway line and buying
freight trains to transport them from A to B.

Of course, all this costs money too ...

Money is raised in several ways. The most obvious is by
transporting passengers by train from their homes to work and back
again. Again, buy a train, but this time make it a passenger train
and set up the departure times for it so that it leaves each area
at the correct time (8am and 6pm).  Another way is by buying and
selling property. I found this quite lucrative, even taking into
account the agent's cut of the profits. Unfortunately after a
while you'll swamp the market and no-one will want to buy your
properties.  The third, and most difficult, is by playing the
stock market, buying low and selling high ... but as you know,
that can be a risky business and hard to keep track of how the
prices are going.

As the game progresses, the program itself will pinch building
blocks and build more residences and, at a later stage, connecting
roads. Lease buildings will get taller until they end up as
skyscrapers. Meanwhile the trains chug on, the stock market goes
up and down like the proverbial yo-yo and you realise that maybe
business management isn't really your thing!

Getting the darn trains running without crashes is tricky too,
unless you cheat and build a double line with one train on each.
Many's the time I realised two trains had got AWOL and, there they
were, one shunted into the back of another.  Fortunately all you
have to do is reposition crashed trains, no damage is caused.

Graphically the game is a masterpiece. Compared to the blocky
graphics of SimCity and the basic display of Railroad Tycoon,
(which were the two most similar games available when A-Train was
first released ... the recent appearance of SimCity 2000 has
tipped the balance somewhat) your first impression has got to be
one of awe, whether it's your sort of game or not. The 3D
isometric display has got a lot to do with this - it's certainly
more realistic than a top-down view.  The undeveloped land is
shown as a patchwork of fields dotted with little houses, with
hills and lakes to add contrast. The way the graphics change is
also impressive. A flock of birds will fly across the landscape
from time to time; night falls and the buildings (and trains) are
illuminated; the changing seasons bring their appropriate colours
to the landscape, including snow.

As with many similar games (SimCity, SC2000 and Railroad Tycoon to
name just the two obvious ones) it's best not to be tempted to do
too much too quickly. The best session I had with A-Train was with
a scenario which I accidentally left running while chatting to
Marion on the phone. Now phonecalls between Marion and myself are
notoriously long and it was only when I hung up that I thought ...
oops ... but back upstairs, a thriving city met my eyes. Similarly
with SimCity the best city I built was when I was trying to
construct a model of Sidcup and because that entailed a lot of
working out where roads should go and so forth, I didn't build so
quickly in the early stages.

In conclusion, as a railroad sim, A-Train isn't as detailed in
some ways as Railroad Tycoon in that the trains are merely
passenger or freight whereas in Railroad Tycoon there were many
different types of train to juggle, carrying different cargo.  The
financial and management sides are far more complex though and may
be off-putting at first.  For sheer enjoyment, I'd prefer to play
SimCity, SC2000 or Railroad Tycoon, but to make you have to think
ahead and plan your strategy A-Train has the edge. And graphically
it's definitely a game to load up to impress your friends. If you
get bored with the original package, there's also an add-on
available on the PC, the A-Train Construction Set, for a
reasonable œ14.99.

                                               Sue
                              - o -