The sim game. Something that gives you the chance to try a job you might fancy in an alternative life or to see if there is room for you to consider a change of career, whether that be running an airport, mowing lawns or even spraying down dirty vehicles or houses. It’s incredible how many different sim games there are on the various gaming platforms, Xbox included, as the genre has grown in popularity.
With Transport Fever 2: Console Edition not only do you get to deal with one transport system, but many different ones from trains to planes to horses and carts. But to make things even bigger, you get to play through the recent history of transport itself. I’ve got a fever and I’m looking for a cure.
Transport Fever 2: Console Edition comes to console with a load of extra content, as it makes the move from PC with all its DLC. Of course, it goes without saying that if you’re not that into sim games, then I don’t think Transport Fever 2 is your gateway. There are reasons for that, but mostly the issue with this one will be the intricacy; it’s a game that is full of detail. That is something that will appeal to veterans and sim fans, but might be too overwhelming for the newcomer. I also believe that Transport Fever 2: Console Edition is best played with a mouse and keyboard, which it supports on Xbox.
There is the free mode to play with once you’ve got to grips with the mechanics of the game, and that is best for when you are comfortable with all that’s on offer. But I think the best place to start with this game is with the campaign. This mode offers a long tutorial that takes you through a step-by-step guide to all aspects of the game. But it also gives you a historical journey through the transport world, working from the 1850s until the present day. It’s a brilliant mode and gives you plenty to do with a superb historical backdrop that takes you around the world.
What you do in Transport Fever 2 is quite hard to describe, but it mostly comes down to partaking in various scenarios in which your job is to find something that needs to be delivered from one place to another. This could be coal, wood, animals, or people for example. You then build a route from one place to another, through a railway line or a bus route, and then you need to man it with some vehicles. So you need to build a transport depot, select the right vehicles for the right job and link it to your route. Now you have a transport link and that’s the essence of the game.
What complicates this process is that in the campaign there are a number of balls you have to juggle at once, all in order to get your mission objectives going. There is also the question of money and finance. Do you spend a lot earlier on to get more profits later, or is it the slow and steady, more conservative way of playing, that is your style? It’s a game that has a surprisingly deep nuance and later on the game gets tricky in its difficulty spike. What works though is the UI – something which becomes second nature after the first campaign. I do think it would still be easier with a mouse in some of the most intricate bits like track placement.
For the confident player is the Free Play mode, where you can choose the parameters of how you want to play. With a fun map editor, you can choose everything from the climate to the topography of the region. You can choose your starting year and of course what difficulty level you want to begin with. There is so much detail in Transport Fever 2: Console Edition that sim fans will be in heaven, but it’s not so off-putting for those who see themselves as just an everyday player.
Transport Fever 2 does a good job of letting you rotate the camera and zoom in and out across your whole map. It makes working through things easy, and then you can highlight tracks, routes, individual buildings or areas. It doesn’t ever feel cluttered and whilst the text is small, it is not impossible to read. A favourite little feature is that once your transport plans are up and running, you can zoom into the cockpit and watch it from the first person in a seamless fashion.
Soundwise and whilst there is a backing track, it gets a bit annoying so you’ll want to switch it out for your own. And in the campaign is some voice-over – it’s decent enough.
If you’re a fan of something like Cities: Skylines – Remastered, then Transport Fever 2: Console Edition is going to be for you. It offers plenty of hours of entertainment and it’s easy to lose yourself in what it delivers; something that is a good mark for any sim game. Utilising mouse and keyboard may feel a better fit, but for those who love the intricacy of transport strategies, this is nirvana.
Transport Fever 2: Console Edition is on the Xbox Store
