Well, I’m through with Locomotion. I didn’t beat it - I didn’t even come close - but I’m done with it. I’ll tell you, I really wanted to like this game. I bought Locomotion with high hopes that I’d enjoy building my very own commercial empire, but it just wasn’t meant to be. The worst part is that I wanted to like this game because there was so much about it to like, it was just executed really poorly.

I think the biggest problem with this game is that it borrows too heavily from its predecessors Roller Coaster Tycoon and Zoo Tycoon. Anybody who’s played any of the games in this series will be able to pick up Locomotion really quickly because it uses a near identical interface. The problem is, the interface that’s good for building a ten square queue for a ride is terrible for building a railroad line across a country. Each section of track has to be laid with a single mouse click with other mouse clicks required for things like turns and elevation changes, and more clicks in order to alter the terrain so that tracks can be laid there. If you need to lay track over hills or mountains, you’re going to be working at it for a long, long time.

Laying track in this bitch is a nightmare.

The problem with track laying is reflective of the universal problem with this game: nothing is easy to do. Every action requires multiple clicks through endless menus and toolbars, opening and closing windows, and moving the view about. For example: the trains age over time, becoming less reliable and more prone to serious breakdown. The solution is to replace the trains as they age; simple enough if there was a “replace train and route” function. Instead, you have to bring up the train’s route window, bring up the “Build Train” window, select a new engine and new cars, open the new train’s route window, select the old route and drag it to the new route, trash the old train, place the new train, order the train to start, then close all windows. The trains have a repair window in which you can change out engines and cars, yet for some reason if you replace the train this way, it’s only half as reliable as a brand new train. The rate at which the trains decay means you’ll be doing this all the time. I don’t understand why there isn’t just a button that allows you to refurbish the train for an appropriate amount of money without the need to go through all the rigamarole.

Routing is also really difficult to manage. Let’s say, for example, you’ve got three trains utilizing two platforms at one station. It seems like this ought to be relatively straightforward. Three tracks leading outward, intercrossed so that if there’s a train at one platform, the other trains have access to the second platform, and enough signals to make sure there are no collisions. Nope. There are rules and regulations here that will have your trains driving about endlessly with no cargo, trains with cargo that won’t make deliveries, and trains that stop dead for no reason. I wished I could tell you why these things happened, but as I mentioned before, the manual that comes with the game is best used as kindling.

This is harder than it looks, and harder than it should be.

When the terrain is flat and the traffic management is simple, this game is fun. I did enjoy the “Beginner” and “Easy” scenarios, but the mountainous and craggy landscapes of the higher levels makes the game really boring. In one instance I spent twenty minutes grading land and laying track between a coal mine and a steel mill, spending every dollar I had, only to have the mine collapse and stop producing coal. I could have borrowed more money and started again, but the thought of spending another twenty minutes grading and laying track to a new mine made me quit in exasperation. I did use the scenario editor (after much experimentation) to create a sort of free-play zone which was mostly flat and allowed me to tool around, but there’s only so much entertainment one gets out of experimentation without goals.

The other thing that I wished this game had was a faster passage of time. Once you’ve picked an era in which to play, that’s pretty much it. Time doesn’t pass fast enough to allow you to work your way up from steam trains to diesel trains to electric. You can set the game to fast forward, but since all of your vehicles degrade, you have to stop regularly to replace them all. Which, as I mentioned above, is tedious.

In the end, the difficulty of getting anything done just sucks the fun out of Locomotion. If you want to be a railroad baron, do yourself a favor by leaving Locomotion out and picking up a copy of Railroad Tycoon II Platinum. The trains are far easier to manage, the interface is a lot simpler, and you can focus on playing the game, rather than being a train repair man.