Let’s be honest business simulation game is a sentence that doesn’t set the world on fire, well for most of us… but there are a die-hard group who love to craft their own transport infrastructure.
So much so that Swish studio Urban Games has just ported their PC hit Transport Fever 2 to consoles giving an even bigger audience a chance to rewrite transport history. The game takes you through different stages in human history, with each stop letting you take control in shaping how transport and its links looked from the past, right up to modern day. Also worth noting is that Transport Fever 2: Console Edition comes loaded with extra content, as it makes the move from PC with all its DLC included.
Gameplay in Transport Fever 2 can be boiled down to its simplest form; as having a number of different scenarios across different time periods, where your goal is to deliver “things” from one place to another… like wood, animals, or even people. This in turn will see you having to build a number of routes from one place to another, through a number of different transport options; like railway lines or a bus route, and then you need to get some vehicles on the fresh routes. So that means you need to build depots, select the right vehicles for the right job and link it to your route. Do all that and it’s a congratulations, as you have just built a transport link and that’s the essence of what the game is all about. They will grow in both size and complexity as you start time hopping to different eras in history, but fundamentally the core loop is the same. You’ll often have to juggle your money and finances too on each project.
This brings up questions like; do you spend big right out the traps or do you take it slow and steady watching the pennies as you go. All resulting in a surprisingly deep and layered system behind the game. If you’re looking to play out your Transport Fever 2 dreams, Free Play mode is where to head. As you can choose and dial the game exactly how you want to play. Thanks in part to a fun map editor, letting you choose everything from the climate, to the topography of the region and most interestingly your starting year. For a PC port, the game does control well on the consoles with credit to the UI for doing a lot of the heavy work – with you taking to it very quickly and it becoming second nature after the first few campaigns, which is a real plus given it’s a game that was created firstly with a mouse and keyboard in mind.
Visually the game is packed with detail letting you rotate the camera and zoom in and out across your whole map as you see fit. You can also highlight tracks, routes, individual buildings or areas to make managing things that bit easier too. A fun addition is if you’re really want to be part of the action once your all up and running, you can zoom into the vehicle of your choice and get a drivers view of all the “action” stop by stop. Sound-wise it does its job with an ok backing track playing away, but given the amount of time you’ll spend planning and tinkering it may start to grind, as for voice acting mainly found in the campaign side, it’s OK with a few interesting accents in the mix. Transport Fever 2: Console Edition is a real niche title, even more niche than some city builder/management titles out there. It does what it says on the tin well with hours of “entertainment” to be had if you dream of bus routes and train lines and get excited by transport strategies.
An Xbox review copy of Transport Fever 2 was provided by Urban Games PR team, and it’s available now on PC, Xbox and PlayStation for around £40.
The Verdict
Stuart Cullen
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