Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #514 in Software
• Brand: Focus Multimedia Ltd
• Released on: 2006-01-20
• Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows 95

Customer Reviews

Not dazzling, but good addictive fun
I picked this up as an impulse recommendation for my son, and am very glad I did.

On the surface the game looks very Sim City-ish, but it has no where near the sophistication which is of course a good thing considering the target age range. The similarity ends with the visual presentation. People and animals come out and roam the city you've made, occasionally make pointless train journeys between stations you may have set up, wander aimlessly back and forth. Not hugely exciting, the main purpose of all this is a backdrop for your train track designs, hence the product title.

The graphics are a bit low-resolution, and as a result everything is a bit small unless you turn down your screen resolution (and you can't play at all without turning your screen resolution to 1280x1024 or lower, which is annoying to constantly have to switch back and forth). Children may have a bit of trouble aligning things like railroad tracks if you don't turn this down.

But despite the simplicity the fundamental game concept is a good one and enjoyable for children. Laying out railroad tracks, choosing cars for each train, sending multiple trains (up to 3) around the tracks, switching points or allowing them to crash into each other. You'll get your money's worth from this alone, but the game has a few other nice touches.

Your child can design "post cards" with Lego graphical elements, a fun little paint program. And they can send them to others on your LAN... ok, so you're probably not going to do that, so instead you can also send them to about a dozen ficticious characters (Santa, Nessy, Skeleton, Snowman, etc.) and receive amusing post card images and messages in return. The trains chug past the post office and pick up post from the mail bag and carry them through a tunnel off-screen, and later another train will arrive bringing the reply.

Thoughtful design touches like that really make the difference, and add sufficient variety to keep your child coming back, or keep their interest beyond a narrow age range (which is playable from around 2 1/2 years if your child has the motor coordination to place the tracks)

Stupid
This game is a waste of money-it isn't worth a penny. You just put down a few tracks and houses and watch trains go on the tracks and maybe send some postcards online but it's still boring. Oh also there's an annoying man.

If you want something like it get trainz railway simulator for great simulation train games or lego racer for some real cool driving and building cars and people.
Andrew age 9

Very good for younger children
My 5 year old likes Lego and he likes trains so couldn't not try this. It's a very simple premise, you build cities based around train tracks, so stations and roads included. However you could just use tracks if you want. Then you watch the trains go round the track you have built. Boring for an adult maybe, but my son loves it. He replicates the tracks he builds with his Thomas set and also tries to experiment with designs of track using the Loco game. For the price, you can't argue.

I should also add that this has developed his control of the mouse to excellent, adult-like levels.