I felt a need to slake my thirst for global industrial domination last week (and more importantly, to do so cheaply), so I purchased a copy of “Chris Sawyer’s Locomotion” with a crisp and fresh $10 bill. “Who is Chris Sawyer,” you ask? The box tells me he’s the genius behind Roller Coaster Tycoon, but as I have no real way to verify this claim I leave it to you to wonder who he is. It seems to me he’s a person who wished he was Sid Meier, putting his name on a box and what not and trying to make straight men go gay for him. Unfortunately for Chris Sawyer, I’m not ready to go gay quite yet.

I’m in the early stages of Locomotion (swinging my hips, but not yet jumping up or jumping back) so my comments should be regarded as preliminary at best. Locomotion is a full-on transport empire simulator replete with trucks, buses, trains, planes, and boats all waiting to chug-a chug-a motion to your every whim. (This joke isn’t going to get old - just a warning) It uses the exact same interface as the Roller Coaster and Zoo Tycoon games, and plays much the same. Your goal: to grow rural areas into giant mega-cities by supporting the industrial base and providing the people with goods, food, and cheap public transportation.

Thus far the biggest problem has been documentation. The dinky manual that comes with the game is almost useless and the tutorials cover three topics: “Buying Buses”, “Setting up Bus Routes”, and “Building Train Tracks”. As you can imagine, building a transport empire requires more than buses and train tracks, but you’re pretty much left to your own devices on learning the rest. The game even comes with a scenario editor so you can design your own landscapes and competitions, but again, there’s no documentation on how any of this is done.

I really want to like this game. The early scenarios I’ve played (thus far, 7 out of the 40 in box) have been satisfying experiences, but I feel like I’m going through the motions without really understanding what’s going on. There are hints of real strategic depth in this title, but it’s really hard to tell when I’ve got almost no idea how the game is meant to be played. Keep your eyes peeled for updates on this title.

ps. the interweb tells me there are three recorded versions of “The Locomotion”: the original by Carol King, the 80’s mall hit version by Kylie Minogue of all people, and one by, god help us, OMD.