Train Simulator

Rating:
Summary: GREAT GAME!!
Review: I thought this game was very cool. If you are a train fan you will love this game... Most people that have it say that it is too simple. I have to admit, it is simple, but if you are a train fan, you will like it. From the Flying Scotsman to the Acela Express, this game truly breaks the barrier for any other simulator out there. I will have to say, BUY THIS GAME!!

Rating:
Summary: Great Game, but some may experience technical difficulties
Review: This is a great first concept for the Simulators in the Microsoft series. The graphics are impressive and the program is nice. You can choose from different lines, Orient Express (only part of it) N.E. Corridor (Amtrack D.C. - Philadelphia) 2 lines in Japan and 2 in England. For Trains you can have the Flying Scotsman, Amtrak's new locomotive, 2 Freight trains, 2 Japanese models and another Steam engine.

This program may fail to run on computers that have video cards that use drivers with nVidia 3.6X or earlier. More information is available at Microsoft's technical support website

Overall this game is very well made and I hope there will be an expansion pack released soon.

Rating:
Summary: THE BEST SIM!!!
Review: MICROSOFT IS REALLY TAKING THE LEAD ON SIMULATORS AND THIS IS NO EXEPTION!! THIS IS TRULY ONE OF THE BEST SIMULATORS BY MICROSOFT FOLLOWED BY MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR AND THIS SIMULATOR WAS MADE BY THE DEVELOPERS OF FLIGHT SIMULATOR. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS SIM, IMAGINE DRIVING THE "BULLET TRAIN" OF AMERICA: ACELA EXPRESS. YOU CAN ALSO DRIVE STEAM LOCOMOTIVES, DIESEL, ELECTRIC. IM TRULY AMAZED WITH THIS SIM SO GO AHEAD AND BUY IT!!!

Rating:
Summary: Warning - this game is addictive!!
Review: My son gave me this game for Father's day, and ever since, it's been hard for me to pry myself away from my computer. This is a first version of this sim, and anything this complicated is sure to have bugs (for those of you who remember Microsoft's first version of Flight Sim, you'll be happy to know that this product is as good as the third version of FS right out of the box). Nevertheless, there are some bugs, but I haven't yet found anything I can't work around.
Ever since I was a kid, I loved trains. What this product does is give you the ability to operate a variety of trains on six accurately modelled routes (from GPS data on real train routes). Two routes are in the US, two are in Europe (one of these is the Orient Express) and two are in Japan. There are a number of pre-packaged activities (challenges) ranging in difficulty, and with a little time, one can even develop one's own custom activities. It is also possible to repaint some fo the locomotives and rolling stock using programs like Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop. Imagine seeing a locomotive with your name/logo on it. Sounds are great. There were modelled using state of the art digital audio techniques, and make the game truely engaging. While the game comes with a nice assortment of Deisel, Steam and Electric locomotives and lots of associated rolling stock (freight and passenger), there's a large community of interet that regularly uploads new locos and rolling stock to a File Library for *free* downloading at www.train-sim.com. There are currently hundreds of locomotives and many more freight and passenger cars of all kinds available for free! Imagine the ability to have an almost unlimited rosted of locos and rolling stock as part fo your railroad! There's also a widely subscribed (free) forum at this site with useful FAQs, and the members are always willing to help a newcomer with whatever advice might be needed.
Train Sim gives you a six virtual railroads where you're the boss. In addition to having full contol over the trains, you can contol weather conditions, time of day, the kind of trains you want to run, and whether or not you'll allow derailments. If you like Trains, you'll like Train Simulator... but be careful, it has been known to be addictive.

Rating:
Summary: Excitement!
Review: This is a fun game with terrific design. If you don't want to drive the train, sit back in the passenger's section, smoke a cigar, and enjoy the scenery. What a wonderfully inexpensive way to take a ride on the Orient Express!!

Rating:
Summary: Great game but a few bugs
Review: Microsoft's Train Simulator has the potential to be a wonderful game. Straight out of the box I would probably give it two stars. It crashes every once in a while, and it doesn't have much variety. The physics of the locomotives and cars is also fairly poor. Luckily, the online trainsim community has fixed most of these issues. There are hundreds of new things to download for it to make it much more fun. There are physics updates, locomotives for every railroad you can think of, and new routes and activities.
The activity editor is about the only editor that is easy to use. You can make your own activity any way you want and put traffic in. The route editor is just plain horrible.
Overall, considering the available add-ons, I think this is a wonderful game that will occupy way too much of your time.

Rating:
Summary: Turn down those video settings!
Review: I was excited about getting this game. I love trains. I installed it on my 800 Mh, 256 meg Ram machine and started playing. My system crashed within 5 minutes. I rebooted and it crashed again. Hmmm. I went into the settings and turned down the video to poor quality. Now it doesn't crash. It seems to me, that based on the minimum system requirements, my machine should handle this well. There are other bugs as well; I cannot run my train in snow for example, I get a window asking me if I want to send this error to Microsoft. Then the program shuts down. So, I play this game with the settings turned down and without the full array of options. And I have fun. But a game this expensive should not be shipped with such blatant bugs. Buy it if you love trains, though.

Rating:
Summary: Train Simulator... Fun to learn but not to play
Review: It's really fun to take all the tutorials that are short, loke 5-25 mins. but some last as long as 2 hours and that is too long! It's stressful to have all these windows popping up, whistles going off when you are trying to go down a steep grade on icy rails at midnight!! That's too much for me! That's why I'm selling my copy .... As long as I can play it at minimal stress times.

Rating:
Summary: wait for the next version (if there'll be one)
Review: Do you like crashing your computer? Do you like monotony? Are you masochistic and like to try to figure out complicated tools? Then try Microsoft Train Simulator.

Rating:
Summary: Completely unrealistic train operation!
Review: Does anybody really think that a 40 car train can accelerate "uphill" under "idle" conditions with the dynamic brakes fully applied on both diesel power units? Well...apparently the Microsoft developers of this game think so! Very plainly put...the controls, especially the braking controls, do not work the way they do in a real locomotive! When looking out of the cab windows (F1) or outside view (F2), the terrain will often look as if the train is indeed going uphill but the speed indicator shows a runaway condition which requires full application of the brakes to prevent exceeding speed limits. There is no indicator anywhere as to the actual track grade situation...positive (uphill), zero (level track), negative (downhill). So so scenery, what there is of it. But there is absolutely no other activity in this world except the occasional passing train! Terrible oversight by Microsoft considering the huge (1.7 gigs) required to install this game completely! Terrible bugs in the game, very difficult to keep running on computer without crashes that require a hard boot to get out of! Read some of the other negative reviews before you decide to put down your hard earned cash for this dud! I've played for only a couple hours and am already bored with the poor performance! Too bad there isn't a "zero" rating available here!!!!!