Reviewed: April 7, 2006
Reviewed by: Jeff Gedgaud

Publisher
Merscom

Developer
Auran

Released: February 2, 2006
Genre: Simulation
Players: 1
ESRB: Everyone

8
7
8
10
8.2

Minimum System Requirements

The lines of where the company builds the game and where fans contribute has become very blurred here, and the fans of several clubs have been instrumental in contributing to the creation of drivable scenarios you get with Trainz: Railroad Simulator 2006, as well as the downloadable items you use to create your own train layouts.

Starting on the games discs you get some of the items and objects that are available and all of the ones used on the enclosed scenarios. But you can also download thousands more from the company as well as other fans that are repainting and making their own objects such as trains, scene textures, scenery, track and trackside objects. The game comes with what they call the Content Manager Plus for downloading and working with all of this but you get more.

You start by installing the Trainz programs and then downloading another program to make your downloads even easier. I know this sounds like they didn’t finish their product but they did very well with what they had and someone else from the fan community made an even better downloader that works along with their content manager. This is an interface to search for and help download things easily and quickly without annoying popups or other external problems. You can also connect to the forums and community chats on the internet for help in searching for what you want or to ask others for help.

Just searching for things will take some time as there is tens of thousands of things you can use in the editor to build with. Once you find what you want the downloader will take care of the rest. Installing it through the Content Manager it will be available for you to use in the editor to make your own layout or modify any of the existing ones that come with the game.

You can even download whole layouts from other people but this can sometimes become difficult as many of the layouts are older and have things made for the Trainz 2004 version or earlier ones. You have to sometimes download extra parts of other layouts to get all of the one you want. Downloading is easy though, with most parts of things or even train parts under 1 megabyte. Entire layouts will come around 1 MB for simple ones and very complex ones will go up from there.

Due to this being a new game some of the content that people have made for the previous version of Trainz does not work on it and will require editing. I’m not sure how to do this for every problem but I have gotten some things to work that the game said was faulty by using the Content Creator Plus which is also used to create objects, trains and other things for your layouts. The community will be helpful for theses types of problems and go out of their way to get you answers to questions and help with things.

Now we go on to the other parts, beside the downloader and manager you have two other major sections, the Driver and Editor. In the Driver you take the wheel, err the throttle and brake of an engine and drive your train to and from destinations. You can have fun just tooling around some of the great and scenic railway systems others have built or work hard at making schedules and delivering goods on time as the engineer. Some of the scenarios included are just for scenic touring while others are passenger or freight runs where you have to deliver the goods on time.

I see why they call train operators engineers, there’s a lot to driving a train and you need to know what you’re doing. Using the steam engines you use valves and gauges and with the diesel and more modern engines you still have a lot of controls. For this reason they have a simplified version of train operating using a simple throttle and brake mode or you can learn how the real engineers do it using the tutorials and drive for real, simulated of course.

The included scenarios vary in time from the first steam engines with you running supplies or goods like timber and mining ore to the modern diesel engines we see today and beyond. You can see the futuristic trains that are in some countries today like the bullet trains of Europe or the Maglev train of the future racing across the countryside on a cushion of air and magnetism.

The game includes a tutorial to help you learn how to drive your train and haul freight or passengers and make your schedule on time. The tutorial is kind of silly but there are some things you need to learn, especially the lingo of trains. Many terms and words are only for the train community and you need to find out what they are.

The best part of the game is by far the editor or as they call it Surveyor. It is a full-fledged game editor with all the stuff to create your own layout. This can be quite fun for many but is also useful to model railroad enthusiasts. When you start your own layout Surveyor asks what scale you want to use from the various model sizes or real life scale. With this program you can create your layout and then use it as a blueprint for making a real life model railroad layout, and many clubs around the world are doing just that.

Surveyor is easy to use but can be time consuming. Some of the features that work very well are the texturing and creating the land but the track laying is probably the easiest. The track snaps onto the ends of the pieces already laid out and automatically bends to provide gentle curves when it can. You also get to put down buildings, signs, animals, people and other scenery. When creating your layout you have to leave the Surveyor to download more things when you decide what is in the Content Manager is not what you want. Learning how to create different parts of the layout like rivers or bridges and slowly texturing and placing all your objects can be time consuming.

The graphics in the Driver portion are not the best but they work very well for this type of game. When you’re in your engine and working your way through a layout you can see the grey and yellow squares that don’t get quite enough texture paint on them. The trees are often that four-sided shape that games have but overall the graphics work well. Auran has made some compromises here and there and you can see them but they have done well with all the games sections and incorporated them into a well-made and complete package for a Sim.

In cityscapes you hear cars and sounds of the city, countryside will have swishing grasses and birds chirping, while forests have more birds cooing and branches creaking. Well you get the point, whatever scene you find yourself in the editor adds in sounds to go along with the type of scene and area just by adding the different noises with each individual object.

Each object will have the sounds or noises commonly associated with that item and add it to the layout. When this happens the more objects like city buildings and the diversity of these items adds to the general clamor of areas with all these objects. So cities sound like they should, or country areas sound quieter with the birds gently chirping.

With all the different things you can add as well as the sounds that come with them it makes it easy to get the general feel for the different things by simply adding more appropriate objects to an area of your layout. In other editors for games you have to add so many things like sounds or effects but with this you get everything associated with each object as one small package when you download and place them with Surveyor.

I myself found that the editor works very similar to other game editors and is easy to use and fun just to create a layout of my own. Downloading other people’s layouts can add to the time you spend with this Sim as well as editing and repainting trains and objects that you can use or upload to the Trainz site for others to use. The community is very active with building layouts and other projects and if you are into this type of Sim there is hours of fun for you.

Trainz: Railroad Simulator 2006 comes with three major sections, Surveyor, Driver and Content Manager/Downloader. But that’s not all you get with this package. You can repaint trains, create your own objects, view trains in detail, work with others creating massive layouts over the Internet and so much more I could be here awhile telling all about it. I have not even looked at other train simulators being content with all the features this one has to offer and will enjoy playing around with it for some time to come.