Transport Fever Review

Transport Fever is a railroad-focused tycoon game. You start in 1850 and build up a thriving transport company. As an emerging transport tycoon, you construct stations, airports, harbors and make money by connecting areas requiring transport services.
Transport Fever Review

introduction

Construct complex road-rail-water-air networks in the endless game and experience more than 150 years of transportation history. Fulfill the people’s needs and watch cities evolve dynamically. Supply industries with freight, develop complete cargo chains and enable economic growth. Build up a transport empire!

Master challenges and get entertained in the campaign game mode. Two campaigns each consisting of ten missions with increasing difficulty can be tackled. Missions of the American and the European campaign tell the historical context of the 19th and 20th century and offer a wide range of real-world transportation challenges.

Transport Fever is a sequel to the popular Train Fever by Urban Games, released in 2014 which focused mainly on trains and buses. Transport Fever adds some new forms of transportation in the mix. You can now move your cargo or passengers by boat or plane as well!

Follow your trains around the map in close up
Transport Fever is available on Steam as of November 8th, 2016 for $30. The game has been developed by Urban Games and published by Gambitious Digital Entertainment.

gameplay

Your main goal in this game is to make money and lots of it. Do it via passenger transportation, or goods transportation, but make sure you end up with a full bank account! Built passenger routes in or between cities, build bus stops, put buses on the lines and transport the citizens of the city to work, home, grocery shopping or to school. The game offers two play modes; campaign and endless game.

In my first game, I tried to focus on passenger lines and tried to make a name for myself. But man is it hard to persuade people to take your buses. The bus stops have a large area of effect but you need to have a route from the home of a passenger to the place they need to go, like work or school, in order for them to use it. Once you have gotten them to use your line, you are in for the money! Unless you decide to blow it all on a train line which is doomed to fail, like I did.

Collect lumber and drop it off at the sawmill to create planks
In the endless game, players start after 1850 and build up a transport company. Infrastructure such as stations, harbors, airports, tracks and streets can be constructed to link hubs of trade and meet the needs of evolving cities. The vehicle fleet requires clever management and should be kept up with the times. Different strategies can lead to a successful entrepreneurship: While the one player may prefer fast passenger trains and frequent tram connections, another may focus on heavy freight ships, cargo hubs and trucks. A European and a North American scenario including matching vehicles and environment are available. Both randomly generated and predefined maps can be played. Optionally, more than 25 challenging achievements can be followed.

You can also watch our First look in our video below:


The campaign mode offers two campaigns. A European and a North American campaign with numerous missions each can be tackled. The missions are set in the historical context of the 19th and 20th century and offer a wide range of real-world transportation challenges. For instance, players are tasked to build a section of the first transcontinental railroad, help to build the Panama Canal, found an airline or develop the Alps. Frame stories make sure the campaigns are entertaining. Tasks include decisions and players can, therefore, fulfill the goals in several ways. Missions can be completed with different scores and hence offer challenges for both beginners and ambitious players. In order to complete a campaign, it takes about 10 hours of play time.

Get goods and passengers as effectively across the map as you can
Transport Fever features the arguably most intuitive and powerful railroad track construction tools ever seen in a game. With a simple click and drag interface, switches, crossings, single- and multi-crossovers, parallel tracks, catenary, railroad crossings, bridges and tunnels can be built. Moreover, the terrain can be aligned realistically, and signals can be placed to control the behavior of the trains. Finally, the building construction tools are smart as well: Train, bus and truck stations, airports and harbors can all be extended and upgraded.

The only downside is that the game freezes up for a couple of seconds every few minutes. Remember, this review has been written while playing the beta version of the game. This might have been fixed in the release version of the game.

sounds and graphics

Transport Fever is a more up to date performance and graphics wise than its predecessor Train Fever. It has better music and sounds, the interface works more intuitive and the graphics are slightly better. Vehicles  are extremely detailed with include emissive lights, transparent windows and interiors, visible drivers and passengers, adaptable painting colors and dynamic aging with dirt and rust, and there are more than 120 of them to play around with!

The sounds are better than in Train Fever. They are not as repetitive and fit the game. The music is awesome! It feels like a mix of mid to late 1900 jazz and country music that really fit the theme and the era of the game.

Transport goods and passengers by air, the final frontier in Transport Fever

conclusion

There is no doubt in my mind that I want to keep playing Transport Fever! I spent a lot of time playing Train Fever and I will do the same for this one. The game runs fantastic, with the exception of the occasional freeze but I'm sure the developers will work that out. The game looks amazing and feels like everything a fan of the Tycoon and Business Simulation genres would want. It has a lot of replay value and it will keep you occupied for a while.

But is it worth over $ 30? I think that's a hefty sum of money for a transportation game. Based on replay value, fun, and overall feel I would say yes, but barely. If the game had a base price of 20 bucks I would tell you all to go out and buy this game. But for 30 dollars I would advise you to watch a playthrough on Youtube before you decide for yourself whether or not it's worth it.

PROS CONS
 + Very in-depth simulation game  – Game freezes up from time to time
 + Over 120 vehicles to choose from  – Price is set to high
 + A lot of replay value  
 + Great sequel to Train Fever
 + Very well detailed
9.5
Amazing

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