Computeractive review on Rail Simulator game

[45002]

Some of you may be intrest on this review from the guys from UK's Computeractive magazine

14 Nov 2007

Ask a kid these days what he or she would like to be when they grow up and you’re more likely to hear 'David Beckham' than ‘train driver’.

But for anyone who harboured childhood dreams of getting behind the controls of a locomotive, EA Games’ Rail Simulator is wish fulfilment in digital form.

As the name suggests, this is a train-driving simulator and it offers two basic options for play: you can either follow predetermined UK and European routes or use the World Editor to build your own environments and lay your own lines, much like a giant virtual train set.

Players also get to choose between three different control models. Simple Control allows them to dive in straight away, letting the computer handle most of the more complicated aspects of running the train.

Intermediate mode provides the user with more control over the throttle and brake, while Expert mode offers the most accurate simulation of a the experience of driving a train.

In this way, the game can be as relaxing or realistic as you want it to be. And if you do decide to go the whole hog, then a handy cheat sheet provides all the important controls and keystrokes as well as info on signalling and signage.

There aren’t a huge number of routes to choose from, at least to begin with. Some variety comes in the shape of the different ways that steam, diesel and electric engines operate. It’s possible that expansion packs or downloadable content may increase the game’s options in the future, but until then, you can use the World Editor to generate your own places.

Graphics are a bit on the basic side, though the game's saving grace is that it’s not necessary to have a top-of-the-range PC to run it. You can also switch between a number of interior and exterior views at any point.

The obvious thing to say here is that if you’re not into trains, then Rail Simulator is probably not for you. Other than reaching your terminus in one piece, there’s no game in the conventional sense. Railway enthusiasts will almost certainly love it, however, despite its relative lack of variation.

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/compute ... lator-game

MARTIN

[jbilton]

Hi
No real surprises there, from a genuine games point of view the standard is very low.
Added together with the poor out of the box playability its not going to be a mainstream hit.
The question which keeps being asked, is how many units are needed to be sold to fund the development of KRS2.
Cheers
Jon

[RSderek]

We missed your cheery posts jon.
And I think it's only you that asks that question.

welcome back.

regards

Derek

[jbilton]

Still............its the big question.

Cheers
Jon

[johndibben]

The review appears fair and most gamers would probably agree with it. Graphics in the FPS genre are extremely good along with rally games etc.

Units sold depend on the market and thank goodness, not sledging by MS fans.

[jbilton]

Still............its the big question.

Cheers
Jon

And unanswered.

Cheers
Jon

[KlausM]

Two days ago In the German TSSF forum, there was a discussion about the success. One guy (who is working for Halycon-Media) referred to data of Media Control, an organization which collects selling data of major outlets in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and does ranking of music, video and game titles. He wrote that (an estimated number of) 2000 units were sold so far in the covered area. However, I don't know how reliable those numbers are and how they can be extrapolated.

Klaus

[ged4246uk]

Hi
No real surprises there, from a genuine games point of view the standard is very low.
Added together with the poor out of the box playability its not going to be a mainstream hit.
The question which keeps being asked, is how many units are needed to be sold to fund the development of KRS2.
Cheers
Jon

I see kettle is stated boiling again over RS.How many units did MSTS sell at £50 no back up at all with MSTS all back up came from 3rd party.At least RS are going to expand theirs MSTS was not expanded by MS. And MSTS 2 I fear will be the same as MSTS - left for rail simmers to finish it off. I haven't seen anywhere that MSTS2 is to be expanded by MS if you paid for MSTS £50 I ask you what are you going to be paying for MSTS2 out of the box a £100 may be and Vista if you don't have it and why is to be just VISTA and not for newer OS coming along. Bring another OS out within a short time there is to be something wrong or ms has made the big mistake as they ever did or their have some new technology if so Vista is out of date before we even buy it

all the best,
ged

[mikesimpson]

Hi Ged,

You just have to compare the graphics in RailSim with EA's new Crysis which we got yesterday, and you would not need to ask why is TS2 just for Vista. Backward compatability with XP gives you exactly that, backward graphics.

As MS only released Vista this year, although they are working on a new OS, I doubt if it will appear for about 5 years (the gap between XP and Vista).

[ged4246uk]

Hi Ged,

You just have to compare the graphics in RailSim with EA's new Crysis which we got yesterday, and you would not need to ask why is TS2 just for Vista. Backward compatability with XP gives you exactly that, backward graphics.

As MS only released Vista this year, although they are working on a new OS, I doubt if it will appear for about 5 years (the gap between XP and Vista).

Vista is beater then xp .I have seen how good it is on the game Pt bouts. I think one of things wrong with RS at the time it was been don was it was to be for xp. then some one want to make it to play on vista late on when vista came out it was i a sumer RS was all most done and to be release one reason for it been late . To do new coding for it to be play on a norther OS I don,t now . And then MS Decider to bring out a rail sim so out it came as it is

all the best
ged

[mickoo737]

Hi Ged,

You just have to compare the graphics in RailSim with EA's new Crysis which we got yesterday, and you would not need to ask why is TS2 just for Vista. Backward compatability with XP gives you exactly that, backward graphics.

As MS only released Vista this year, although they are working on a new OS, I doubt if it will appear for about 5 years (the gap between XP and Vista).

Mike, Crysis is a mammoth difference in game design to RS or any other train sim for that matter, even flight sim, the technology in FPS games and there ilk is probably not suited to the serious or even semi serious 'technical' game, whilst many environs are 'busy' few will approach the sheer poly count of a train and its consist or Heathrow and 40+ AI, FPS games rely on fast moving lower poly count objects to give a sense of completness which allows the game engine to 'wow' with graphics, technical games reverse the status with excellent models few and far between at the expense of wow graphics.

Everything advances all the time but it'll be a long time before any train sim game ever approaches the fidelity of graphics of top of the range Vista / DX10 FPS games we are seeing today. Train sim like flight sim is not restricted to the box map or funnel game play, its a 360 degree enviroment and one which you can easily flip outside the box at will, unlike Crysis, Far Cry, Doom etc where by your essentially restricted to the set path through the puzzle.

Regards

[johndibben]

Interesting point.

Assume when MSTS and Trainz were released, the fps games wern't much better.

Now they clearly are.

With mostly FPS games appearing, sims would appear far more on their own and none are mainstream any more.

Be interesting to know the sales figures for FS-X compared with FS-ACOF and FS2004.

[MaxFreak]

Mike, Crysis is a mammoth difference in game design to RS or any other train sim for that matter, even flight sim, the technology in FPS games and there ilk is probably not suited to the serious or even semi serious 'technical' game, whilst many environs are 'busy' few will approach the sheer poly count of a train and its consist or Heathrow and 40+ AI, FPS games rely on fast moving lower poly count objects to give a sense of completness which allows the game engine to 'wow' with graphics, technical games reverse the status with excellent models few and far between at the expense of wow graphics.

Regards

O/T ... counts for Crysis match or exceed Sims .. Only the count per level is different as you rightly point out --

Weapons (1st person and 3rd person bind models)
1st person: about 6000 triangles (same as cryengine1; not more really needed – above, normal maps are not needed)
3rd person: about 1500 triangles
Characters
As we are using attachments we have to split the triangle numbers in the separate parts:
* Heads 3k triangles
* Body 5k triangles
* Attachments 1 k triangles
Vehicles
Max. 20000 polygons is our internal limit ( Personal Edit --- This limit has already been significantly increased )
Buildings
Hard to answer – put detail were detail is needed. No real need to go crazy. If you only have a few buildings in your level you can spend more triangles, but you should be careful in City maps.
Vegetation
Between 500 and 2500 triangles for trees –whereas the ones with 2500 should not be used in a dense forest because of the filtrate – It heavily depends on the scenery you want to create.
Misc entities
Depends on the size and the complexity.
If you use one material, 300 polygons for a box are ok. This is the minimum number, one set of material should use in an object, as the setup for the renderer is much heavier compared to the actual rendering of these polygons. This also means you do no need LODs for objects lower then 500-600 triangles (given they only use one material).
We stick to the 3 LOD's - not a real reason to make 4 (just needs more memory). Polycount is not the big problem when rendering our datasets. Material changes and the resulting draw-calls affect performance much more heavily on modern graphics cards than pure triangle count alone.

~A~

[45002]

Still............its the big question.

Cheers
Jon

Its is a intresting question ? KRS 2 i doubt it

MARTIN

[AndiS]

To me it is the most boring one. Date and list of fixed issues for the first patch? Yes, please! Although I am prepared to wait a few more weeks. KRS2? Comes after MSTS2-new and Zusi3 in the list of distant haze distracting from the here and now.