Railroad Tycoon 3: Was it any good?
 

I remember the word on the street was that this highly anticipated game was a bit of a letdown. I was a huge fan of previous versions, and I know a few of you guys picked up 3...is it worth me picking up now that the price has dropped a bit on it?

Enjoyed it a lot for a while- then got bored. Then again, I paid 20 bucks for it, and I think you can probably pick it up for 10 now - which is well worth it IMO. I wish the business model was more developed, but I thought it was a wonderful looking game.

My brief impressions, because that's about how long I played it. Railroad Tycoon I was the first sim pc game I ever played. I played it quite a bit, and probably dented my college GPA because of it. Railroad Tycoon II was awesome to me. Greatly improved graphics, excellent gameplay, good scenarios, lots of replayability.

Railroad Tycoon III never grabbed me. It may have been because I didn't spend as much time getting into it (seems like FOF4 or FOF2k4 came out about the same time). Possibly it might have had something to do with getting used to the new economic model. Or it could have been that everything seemed too automated and the only decisions I found myself making was which city to connect to next. Whatever the reason, I just never got into it like I did RRTII.

The campaign scenarios seemed a little forced and less than intriguing. I can remember one where you had to spread fertilizer in a somewhat post-apocolyptic world, but could only pass through a station once, could only lay a small amount of track, and had a limited time to cover as much territory as possible. I know carrying X amount of Y cargo can get a little redundant, but spreading fertilizer?

Anyway, if you can find it for $10, it's probably worth it, since you should get several hours of play out of it. Also, if you go in with low expectations, it might exceed them.

I will say that the graphics are pretty amazing, and the controls are pretty cool. The way you can spin the view and zoom in and out is really quite impressive. I just wish the game engine matched the eye candy.

That's my $0.02.

thanks guys - that answers the question for me pretty well.

They did the same thing as all games seem to do now. They filled it with pretty 3D images and Dumbed it down so little kids could play.

How is RR Tycoon II? Is it worth picking up cheap if I can find it? Does it have a long learning curve? I'm generally a bad video game player... will that hurt my enjoyment of the game?

I don't personally think there's a huge learning curve for RT2, because they start you out pretty slow between the tutorial and the first batch of scenarios.

Absolutely. I think you can get a bundle of RRT2, airport tycoon and mall tycoon for $10 or $15. At least I remember seeing it at Target, WalMart, Best Buy, etc. many months ago. You can just chunk the others and keep RRT2 as far as I'm concerned and it'll be worth it.

As far as the learning curve, it isn't bad as the post above mentioned. The tutorial will get you going, and the campaign scenarios help pull you along.

It is a game that you can play as fast or as slow as you want. For the micromanagers, you can specify every load on every train if you want, or you can simply set 'em up and let 'em go.

There is quite a bit of replayability, because the resources are random and the cities you choose to start in can affect how your game develops. Personally, if given the choice of RRT3 or RRT2, I'd go with 2.

After not touching it for a year and a half or so, I started a new campaign with RR2 just before Christmas and played all of the scenarios in it in one week. It is definitely a classic and pretty easy to pick up.

Highly recommend grabbing RRT2. I can't recall if they had a Gold or Platinum version that included the expansion(s), but keep that in mind.

The only thing in terms of learning curve to avoid (in my opinion) is the stock market aspect. Depending upon how you set up your scenario or game, there will be other railroads with AI owners competing against you. I had a dog of a time figuring out the nuances of competing stock ownership. But that might just be me, YMMV. It is an option you can play without.

RRT2 is easily one of my favorite PC games of all time. Definitely worth picking it up.

RRT2 is a definite pick up and it is great playing with the stock market options. Just be careful not to buy everything on margin!

I didnt think 3 was that bad- but some people here seem to really hate it. I thought it was basically a prettier version of 2- with no significant improvements. Any specific reasons ?

I didn't read anyone hating it, just prefering 2 to 3.
I was thinking about picking it up because my kids really like trains and it's something we can play together. So in this case, the dumbing down might actually be a selling point for me. And the eye candy (can't believe I said that)!


EDIT: I haven't seen this game for lower than $18.95. Can anyone fill me in on where they saw it for $10?

I believe it was at a Target or something like that - Bargain bin and all.

I don't think there was any hate, just disappointment that the focus was on eye candy and not gameplay.

For me I think getting used to the new economic structure, coupled with the changes to the way consists were handled were the biggest reasons it was hard to get into.

"I thought it was basically a prettier version of 2- with no significant improvements."

For me this would be:

I thought it was basically a prettier version of 2- with a few steps backwards in gameplay.

It is still a good game, but just not as fun as 2, IMO.

Before you get this, I'd suggest seeing if you can find the platinum version of RT2 alone, I found that for $10. It has an extra batch of scenarios in case you want some more to play when you've finished the original campaign.

Yes, I agree. If you can find the platinum, it would be a good way to go.

Amazon.com has a bunch of cheap options for RRT2 Platinum.