Language: English
The classic Transport Tycoon was a game that shaped the whole genre in mixing all four forms of transportation: road, rail, water and air. The Swiss games Transport Fever and Transport Fever 2 went exactly the same route and with very similar mechanics, although not exactly the same.
As a starting point you get 5 million USD of a credit to build your company, you can choose any strategy you want, you will get a randomly generated map (in one of 3 different landscapes) and vehicles that are appropriate for the era you set your game in (between 1850s and modern times). There are always some cities on the map, which provide passengers for your local transportation (you can set up bus or tram lines within them) as well as transit to other cities using any transport form you can provide.
Also, the map is filled with different industries, some of which just produce a particular raw material (f.e. stone, coal, grain, etc) or they transform raw materials into products (f.e. grain into bread, stone into bricks, crude oil into oil). Each city requires some products, so at the end of the process, the fully finished product will end up in one of them, meaning you have to plan the whole route for the materials and products to keep them most cost-efficient.
All of the above description are the basics that were present in such games from the times of Transport Tycoon, and Transport Fever games did not improve the genre in any way. It is basically what it said on the label, you build the routes, you buy the vehicles and cover the costs and that is about it. There are no random events that would disrupt your organization, some of the factors that are usually added to such games are not present here (the time and distance sometimes play no role, so delivering something faster or on longer route will not always have impact on your incomes).
Basically it is not a game of skill, rather a game of time, if you can endure the costs for long periods of time, usually the routes will become profitable at the end. And since there is no penalty for being in the red, you can endure the costs more or less forever. There are some good elements in the game, like the graphics are nice, some of the tools available to manage your fleets are nice, but overall it is one of the sandbox games that have no real goal, other than making money. And once you reach the level you have more income than things to spend on, the game just goes nowhere.
Overall, a nice sandbox game, but with limited potential due to lack of some basic mechanics, like penalty for overdraft or running the vehicles beyond their lifespan. There are some good bits, like graphics, option to view from a cabin of a vehicle (sort-of) and options to modify objects, but it is one of the games that is miles wide and inches deep. Even the difficulty levels do not change much, the supply and demand are the same, you just get less money, which does not make the game harder, just it takes longer to get anywhere.
Our rating
4.8
/ 10
Game value
5
/ 10
Train scenes
3
/ 5
Adventure
1
/ 5
Scenery
3
/ 5
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