When you marry together two very different game concepts, it can easily lead to trouble. Often one game mechanic will be focused on at the expense of the other, leaving you with a situation where neither genre really shines. Trans-Siberian Railway Simulator tries its best to marry the Simulator genre – focused on hyper-realistic gameplay – and the FPS genre – a field dominated by lots of intense fire fights and combat tactics. It relies heavily on absurdist humor to keep you invested, but I’m not sold on it.
Both of these genres have their strengths and weaknesses, both have mechanics or tropes that delight and depress gamers. Unfortunately with Trans-Siberian Railway Simulator, we seem to get the worst of both worlds. Now, the game is in early access, so there’s still time to correct some of the problems, but I’m not convinced that the core concept, in-depth train simulator meets Russian Mafia shooter, can even work together.
It’s essentially two games you swap between; maintaining your train, repairing it, and taking jobs to haul cargo, then blowing up bridges and shooting political rivals. Trans-Siberian Railway Simulator feels like it’s trying to be Grand Theft Auto on rails, but it falls short in most every metric. The FPS part isn’t good and the simulator part is tedious.
Trans-Siberian Railway Simulator is available on Steam for $19.99
Story – Soviet Spies and Teetering Trains
Strangely enough, Trans-Siberian Railway Simulator does indeed have a story mode. While I wasn’t expecting much, I was still a little disappointed by how little there is here to latch onto. Even other sim games like Construction Simulator manage to sneak in a mild story of some sort, something to give you a little motivation for the work you’re doing. Trans-Siberian Railway Simulator’s story, however, left me disconnected.
Ostensibly, you’re a railway train operator that does jobs for the Mafia on the side. Why you’re doing this isn’t clear, nor do you really have any choice in how to go about it. There’s an unspecified (or at least pretty vague) threat and, for some reason, you’re the only person that can handle these jobs. While hauling loads from town to town, you have to pause your train and rush off into the snow to kill, steal, or blow up bridges. You meet a few Mafiosos along the way (several of which seem like they could’ve just done the job,) but I don’t think a single one stands out as any more memorable than the anonymous voice that gives you your missions over the radio.
I do have to admire any game that has “alcohol” and “hangover” as survival meters.
Gameplay – Choo Choo to Bang Bang
Trans-Siberian Railway Simulator tries to capitalize on the absurdity of swapping from hyper-detailed train operation to drinking beer or vodka as a survival mechanic, running over deer, fighting bears, and assassinating pimps. But unlike something like, say, Goat Simulator where the absurdity lends itself to a constant list of things to do, Trans-Siberian Railway Simulator is a test in patience.
Mowing down pimps in a nightclub. Just another day at the office.
The Train Stuff
Anyone that plays simulator games knows that most of them are not something you focus 100% of your attention on. You need Netflix on your second screen or maybe a podcast playing, because a lot of the work is tedious. Realistic, but tedious. And when you’re not setting your sights on a Russian drug dealer or delivering counterfeit notes to an agent, you’re sitting. Don’t get me wrong, all the things you do on the train are realistic, from the switches to the distances and times, but unlike a car that requires your constant attention, Trans-Siberian Railway Simulator sits in the worst of gray areas.
With no music (there’s a radio you can manually tune or play a cassette tape from) and nothing to really occupy you, Trans-Siberian Railway Simulator forces you to find something to keep your attention. You’ll go kilometers without having to touch anything. But, at a moment’s notice, you’ll have a target come up that requires you to stop a fully loaded train in less than 1000 meters. Or flip a switch that keeps your train from electrocuting you. Or slow down so you don’t derail on a sharp turn. Not enough to keep you entertained, but just enough that you can’t really look away.
I will praise the authenticity of the operation, though. Trans-Siberian Railway Simulator has dozens of train parts that you have to keep an eye on, replacing at every stop lest you suddenly lose the ability to brake (I’m speaking from experience.) Manage your money well, don’t buy things you don’t need (cough chainsaw cough,) and you should be able to make it from station to station without too much incidence. But once you arrive at your destination, the tedium of starting and stopping a train – likely an exercise in patience for players of the fast-paced FPS genre – wore on me. Let’s just say I got good at ghost riding my train and leaping out while it was moving just to save time in stopping and starting.
Every switch and dial means something. Can’t remember what, but it’s something.
The Shooty Stuff
The on-foot sections of Trans-Siberian Railway Simulator are probably its weakest point. Somehow the game manages to be simultaneously too easy and too hard. I was excited to get off the train, fight bears and foil dissident plans, but what I was given was a laundry list of objectives that were just wash-rinse-repeat. I’m hopeful the upcoming content helps a bit with this, but for what’s already playable, it’s a mess.
On the “too easy” side of things, your first mission to kill pimps at a nightclub becomes a walk in the tundra once you realize they won’t move. They’ll aim their guns at you and fire, almost always hitting, but you have the freedom to move. You can hole up behind a couch or, if you’re clever, find an angle where their guns are aimed at furniture. As they impotently put holes in the bar counter, you can headshot your glowing red targets.
On the other hand, however, if your targets have line of sight to you – under any conditions – you better run. One of my missions was to take out a drug lab filled with scientists with pistols. Pistols. At night. Pitch black. Over 200 meters away. The moment I opened the train door, one apparently had a sight on me and was bulls-eying me over and over. I assumed they were a sniper because I had a scope and couldn’t find them. Nope. Tiny little pistol. Trans-Siberian Railway Simulator’s citizens are all Olympic level marksmen with Darkvision. Well, not even that, because Darkvision only goes 60 feet.
The AI doesn’t really know what to do if it can’t see you.
Audio & Graphics – Quiet and Colorless
The audio is nothing to write home about. Trans-Siberian Railway Simulator has realistic sounds, of course, but so much of your time is spent in absolute quiet, your own train whistle is the only respite from the mind-numbing silence. As mentioned before, you can turn on a radio manually, but playing with a cassette loses its appeal quickly. A soundtrack does kick in occasionally during intense missions, but I couldn’t even tell you what it was like; most of my audio was coming from YouTube.
On top of this the graphics are serviceable and, I suppose, accurate. A frozen tundra. Kilometers of white snow speckled occasionally with forests. The visual respite of a town doesn’t last long as only the train stations themselves have any visual identity. Again, this is probably accurate. But it’s also boring. Adequate. Functional. Soviet. Like a cheap vodka, it’s colorless and tasteless… but it’ll do the job.
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- The only difficulty I had was when the AI swarmed me. But I found a hiding spot.
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- Repairing parts is kinda fun, but some of them wear out so fast.
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- The locals are all kinda stiff and lifeless. But I’d be, too, if I lived there.
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- She’s a beaut. Treat her right and she’ll get you home.
Trans-Siberian Railway Simulator was reviewed on PC (Steam) with a key provided by Pentacle.
