Pros:

Trainz simulator 12 is a very great game that you can do lots of stuff like do some industry things like pick up coal and drop coal off and much more. The passenger system is great but the passengers just dissaper so thats a little bit disapointing. You get lots of trains and Coaches and that. The scenarios are fun because it takes 30 minutes or an hour to complete them so it should keep you very busy. Ever since N3V games made multiplayer, me and my friend did lots of scenarios together.

Cons:

Not a lot of maps to select which was dissapointing because in Trainz Simulator 2010 you get a big selection of maps and more mods + it had the LMS Flyingscotsman and the Mallard but in this version you dont get those.
First class tickets for download station are expensive so I think its a rip off.
You get very big lag spikes even though I have a high end PC so I had to turn off the shadows.

Overall

Overall I think its still a great game. The price is right and you get a lot of dlcs so you should check them out.
I think Trainz Simulator is better then Train Simulator 2015.

Thanks for looking at my review :)

I love this game. It has some issues I would agree (not a real speed "feel", gameplay gets laggy on most maps no matter your hardware, ability to eat way to many hours), but it more than makes up for those issues and more with the surveryor alone (the surveryor is what they call the building overlay. You can play for six months with the content that comes with the game, and their are huge amounts of addon routes and cars and engines available on the download station through auran.com.
The longer you play with it the more you realize you could do with it. As an example I live in northern Mi (USA), and I have built myself most of the tracks in the state (excluding the upper peninsula). Then you find the download station and realize there are most routes and sessions than you could ever drive, ranging from beginner to simply evil in difficulty, and taking anywhere from a few minutes to a full day in drivetime.
I am happy to have this game on steam where it kept up to date, common links all in one spot(again updated for me), and is mine for the forseeable future no matter which computer I manage to kill.
Oh and once you get a handle on how the portals work give me a shout. Drive right from your coal mine through a tunnel and come out where ever you want (other maps, turned around, different location on same map, community maps).

Anyway I highly recommend this title even over the dovetail games title just released. From what I've read 2015 is a pretty much reskinned copy of this game anyway.

A very good game! Good for driving trains, and you can even build your own routes, if that's your thing. The multiplayer can be very laggy, but other than that, a good buy! :)

Following the purchase of Microsoft train simulator back in 2002 I have always gone out looking for other simulators (especially train simulators) so I can confidently say that I KNOW Trainz, from Trainz, Trainz 2004, Trainz 2006 and Trainz Classic UK.

What is this game? = answer its bad, it’s a simple money sock soaking up the cash from every innocent customer. I mean really guys this is just bad... don’t even debate.

Where do I even start?

Firstly and this is my biggest point that drives me up the wall. This is NOT a new/newer game. By the use of clever branding and publishing your led to believe that this. OH WOW, IT’S A NEW TRAINZ!!! ... Well don’t get too excite sat at ye-oldie computer because it’s not.
If you simply go into your “Rail yard” (which lists each loco/rolling stock for you to observe) you can see that 90% of the content, YET AGAIN has just been copied and pasted from the previous versions. I mean Big Boy ??. for crying out loud that was made for Trainz 2004 it looks a pile of A*** for one of the latest’s lines of train simulators. Its laziness, pure and simple..
However that being said, they have made some, and I mean some, new locos and stock that actually looks ok.

The sounds are awful, again like the locos, sounds have been taken from the Trainz backlog of games. This game screams nothing but laziness, essentially what you looking at is trainz 2004 with mix and matches on certain locos and routes in truth.

In terms of simulation there isn’t any, well no more than some buttons that make you go forward and backwards, ok there is the complicated control system but its miles from simulated, it feels like someone who has a basic grasp of what things do and has just botched it together how he thinks is best. So it’s not a great start is it?
The menu and in game overlay/system is far far far complex than it needs to be, like seriously what was wrong with a button that just opened up individual trains to place, here you have got to go create a consist somewhere and then once that’s saved you can load it up in game, it is just stupid.

Want to know something that amazed me? I find it amazing how a Post PS2 era game with the same level of graphical detail can run THIS badly!!, ¬ seriously. I can run Train Simulator 2015 on full graphics reaching about 20fps in lag spikes and running normally at about 35-40fps
this game however runs like a slug, RUBBISH, I get 9fps at best, I turn down the graphics so it looks EVEN worse for very little improvement.

The only thing worth crediting on this game is the first appearance of Train Simulation in Multiplayer...ok it’s a short lived compliment because you can only drive from one map unless you come off the game and fiddle around with the content manager thing to get more, the trains are already placed even if you’re a server host and this far complicated menu system just makes the whole experience even more un-enjoyable. However when you finally do get set up it can be some full playing with friends. But again short lived, because every time a player joins the game will send you miles and mile away from your own train for no apparent reason and it’s a fiddle to find “where you once where”

I got this cheap but even cheap feels expensive, I would pay at best £5 for this ....
Out of curiosity I bought a bundle of 16 Trainz DLC the other day for £2.99 to try out.... and there amazingly rubbish. Just avoid at all cost is my advice. In fact go play train simulator its better ;)

very enjoyable but there still needs to be a huge fix for the preformance (frames, rendering and detail render), overall a fun game

I recommend this game, but with serious caveats. First of all, this is going to appeal to two very specific kinds of people:

1. Those people who want to get into hyper-detailed train simulations.

2. Those people who just like driving trains around, probably with their kids.

I fall into the second camp, so I can't speak to the first camp at all. I've spent my time with the game playing with my four year old son, just kind of driving around, trying not to exceed the speed limit, trying to stop at the stations, and looking at the scenery and inside the cars.

The graphics are dated, but things like the skies and the countryside are beautiful in their way. There is a sense of verisimilitude that I really like, and the fact that the trains are fully animated throughout all their pieces is a big plus. I'm able to show my son various parts of trains up close while they're working, and he's gotten a much better sense of how trains work than through some other explanations or even riding on them (he loves trains).

The controls are mildly awkward, the constant trouble with speeding or slowing too much is annoying, and the sense of speed of the train is... not very fast. Slowing down is like stopping a truck full of bricks, it just doesn't want to happen. Warning on when an actual platform that I care about is coming up would be nice, although via the map I was able to figure out more about it.

If you disable Hardware Transform and Lighting or don't use DirectX, expect interminable lag as you pan around. With those on, it was very smooth for me.

We have yet to complete any of the runs, and don't really care. We just hop into one and drive around, trying not to break the rules long enough that it will let us actually play. I bought this on some sort of extreme discount, and at that price (maybe $5?) this was absolutely and positively worth it. We've spent a couple of hours having a blast with it, and we'll likely spend several more.

Would I play this on my own, without my son? No. I'd find it pretty frustrating if I was actually trying to complete goals. But then again, I'm not squarely in the target audience for the adult side of this game. Be sure and check out reviews from folks like that if you are.

I have been playing simualtors like these for many years, so here's my review:

This game is Alright, it's very balanced in nature, quite flexible orders and rule system, while having a mid-range graphics capabilities, with very friendly, yet stupid AI system.

The forums have been very good to me over the years.

CMP is alright for keeping track of content, it is very friendly for the beginner for maanging and sorting content, but it gets less and less flexible as your experiance grows.

The thing I like most aobut CMP, would be its "Content Creator Plus", it gives you the tools to create content pretty nicely, CMP also sorts content for you into diferent catagories

I do like the concept of CMP as a whole, but what I don't like, is the trainz database, if it gets corrupt, it has to do an "Asset repair", which fixs all of the descrepencies within the database, which is why I'd prefer Windows Explorer to do it, and trainz to just load the content in.

The lack of beginner tutorials, espechially route creating / steam locomotive tutorials really doesn't help beginners get used to driving driving steam locomotives for the first time.

Creating routes is hard without advanced DEM tools (Digitally Elevated Maps), which is sold seperately, so what you're left is oversimplified terrain tools, which doesn't really give enough flexibility when creating rotues.

I'd much prefer an external tool handle DEM maps, such as L3DT.

Creating routes using the default tools makes route creating tedious and it doesn't really give a realsitic feel when it comes to the finsihed product.

The inability to create vertical structures using the default game grid restricts multiple players and forces them to build models which gives the effect.

The 10M grid is way too low resolution, the 5M resolution is too big as well.

Soo, I have to ask this, if trainz can support models which have so many polygons, why does trainz baseboards lag so badly with anything below 10 or even 5?

I can almost guarrantee that the baseboards are going to be lower poly compared to rolling stock and locomotives.

I bought this game because of the "Multiplayer" aspect of it, which everyone wanted since 2007, which, at the time, the thread had 800 replies to it, Unfortunitely, when multiplayer came out, all of the data was routed through Auran / N3V's servers, causing lag for practically everyone, which sort of continues today.

Now you rarely ever see more then 5 players playing on multiplayer at a time, compared to the thousonds of people playing Garry's mod.

It's a shame that multiplayer turned out to be less popular then anyone at the time would have anticipated.

I admit, trainz isn't going to be anyone's cup of tea, and it has its pros and cons, but I feel this game is okay. I'd recommend it for the beginners and seasoned players, because of its ease of use and the concept of the game is moderately easy to learn, but again, the lack of tutorials is a let down for the game.

I hate trying to review "mixed" games.

This game is good if your really into trains, setting up your own routes, playing multiplayer, or just wating time.

Pro:
Multiplayer
Scenarios
Set up your own routes
Often in bundles for under $5
Go find the download station

Con:
LAG
Multiplayer can have very low (sub 20) frame rates on modern systems
No steam cards
No Workshop .... Seriously? This is exactly the type of game the workshop was made for
If your not into trains big time it will be boring as hell


VERY VERY CON:
The price and the DLC price.
OK so this game is 90%+ 2010 so the additional cost would be, relatively, minimal.
The DLCs do cost to develop but we're talking almost $200 for everything (not on sale)
This is a $15 -$20 game (half that if you have 2010) and the DLCs should be in the $5 to $10 range.
I guess it's cheaper than setting up a H-O track in your basement, but still this is NOT a $200 game.





Overall:
If your into trains and don't have 2010 get the game when it's on sale and find the download station.
Avoid if your actually paying full price.



So thumbs up or down .... STEAM WE NEED A SIDEWAYS THUMB!
Thumbs up, but only if your into trains and can get this on sale.

Not bad but not good. Lags When Trying to load the map. map will hardly load without unrendering, trains are pretty detailed. not recommended if you have Train Simulator 15 but it is not too bad. Sounds Meh.

A lot of bugs and crashes. Almost unplayable. Did not enjoy this at all.

Well, I must start by saying I think I might've wasted my 10 dollars buying this game on sale :(

The game is poorly optimized, with very bad graphics (no option to change screen resolution). It runs worse than train simulator for some reason, and is barely playable for me. The locos are nice, but lots of them have the same sounds. Lots of rolling stock is included.

I cannot recommend this one, I am sorry to say, unless you have a PHENOMONAL computer!

IT is a fun game to play! But it was lagy on my Windows 8 / laptop

I spent a few hours with this game one night when I couldn't sleep. It was some sort of tired fun, but I wouldn't really recommend this game to anyone. Oh! A 7 minute wait in Krutoborka? How much more excitement can I take?

Seemed the developers just went into lazy mode and instead reused the old game code form the previous releases. As a result, graphics are still dated, the atmosphere is just unrealastic (who in the world boards a freight train?), some maps that came with the game are incomplete, the rolling stock and the controls looked and felt mostly unreal, configuration for you train consist is just too confusing, broken and unreliable and the whole game is too laggy even on a high spec PC.

Plus, the download server for the mods is broken and even if you managed to find one for this version, the would even ask you to pay for just a simple mod you could make and get it for free. The developers never bothered to look up into this issue. Even so, there are hardly any interesting mods for this version.

Overall, game is barely playable. Still enjoyed and learned something from it at least. Buy it if it's for free. I'm hoping for a community made version of another train simulator that contains minimal bugs and glitches and the mods actually downloads and works and that the community is more active.

EXTREMELY slow. There's no excuse for how slow it is. I'm running a computer with an i7 processor, 16 gigs of RAM, and a pretty good graphics card. I can play BF4 on ultra settings with no problems. This game I cant play on even medium. It's frustrating. Also there are not very many scenarios to boot and the maps are not very big at all. Don't pick this one up for full price because it is NOT worth it. Also even if the graphics are kicked up all the way, it doesnt look that great. I want immersion in my simulators like euro truck. This game does not give me immersion with all of it's lag and lack of content.

Bought game, drove train, uninstalled game

10/10

waste of time .don,t buy ))

Terrible.

I dislike the way the company that does Train Simulator (2014 as of this writing) does business and hoped to find an alternative to satisfy my love of simulations and trains. I have been told several times that Trainz is the superior product anyway and that I should get it. I have no idea what the people who said this to me were even thinking.

The instructions are awful, essentially non-existent, so you need to try to figure out the interface yourself. This is possible but takes time to navigate the proprietary lingo and general disorganization. I somehow deleted (or it just disappeared) a section of the HUD that gave me info on upcoming speed limits, the grade of the track, etc., and I never got it back, making the game unplayable unless all you really want to do is try to derail everything. The only online communities I could find for help were all geared toward content creation, which seems to be the only thing people really enjoy about this since, I suppose, they can charge unwitting suckers like myself for it. The section of the official wiki dealing with driving the train doesn't even exist. The "manual" tells you the keys for doing things, but this is very basic and covers none of the actual problems you'll face.

The map? You navigate it by right-clicking on individual points that are all buried in a massive amount of labeling, none of which tells you any information you might actually need until you've zoomed in so close you've lost all context. You can't rotate it, but it will rotate on its on depending on the orietnation of your train. There's no helpful color coding for cities vs. depots vs. any of the countless other things you need to find. I am offended that this map even exists.

Also, on modern computers (i7) with good graphics cards (GTX 660) -- the performance is worse than on Windows XP and an old Geforce 8600. I mean, bad. Textures won't load sometimes. When they do, they load very slowly. The game simply stops working for seconds at a time.

The whole experience was just awful, bad enough that I actually took the time to write this review after finally giving up.

I could go into more detail, but no one would bother reading it anyway. Suffice to say, I spent hours on this game just trying to do one scenario. I got through it and immediately deleted the game. I wish I could delete it from my memory.

Can be amazing... when it works. Unfortunaly, a fun game and a powerful editor gets slapped with a terrible engine that will lag horribly ON THE MENU SCREEN. The amount of user-made content is pretty good; however in one of the most shameless cashgrabs I have seen, you are limited to a download speed of around 5 KB/s and a download limit of 100MB unless you pay up. Could be great, but in short, avoid.

I have spent many hours happily playing this game, but I can't really recommend it as a "game" because of a couple things:

1) Framerate, audio, entire application responsiveness takes a massive hit without severely limiting texture qualities and draw distance, making for a high cost to actually take advantage of the game's optimized graphics options. Two upgraded computers later, I still have to cripple the draw distance and texture quality in order to play without the game regularly freezing up for a few seconds every time a bunch of new content needs to be drawn, such as when you pan the camera around.

2) Included sessions (for which there are steam achievements) are often glitchy or tempermental in their willingness to aknowledge your progress. A signal which should change automatically doesn't, resulting in you being unable to complete a session after investing an hour or more into it. Or a session will suggest you are driving a long train, however you are only driving a locomotive with no actual stock attached. Usually I like retail "games" to have more polish than this, and feel that this superb simulator is, unfortunately, not so superb a "game".

Further dissuading me from pushing this game on my friends is the fact that the developer, n3v/auran, has now embarked on a kickstarter campaign to fund creation of the next revision of the Trainz series, "Trainz: A New Era." I don't expect the glitches or engine to get any extra polish/performance at this point.


That all said, however, I have enjoyed this game quite a bit since I got it. The driving experience lets you choose often (in some sessions you are forced to use one or the other) whether to use DCC or CAB mode. DCC seems to emulate an electric model railroad with a simple knob to control movement. CAB mode attempts to emulate real railroads (I am not qualified to say how close it comes) by making the user interact with the reverser (forward/reverse/neutral), a range of throttle notches from -9 to 9, and, for when the engine is pulling cars and the e-brake won't cut it, a complex train brake where you cycle through initial -> lap -> application and watch the various brake pipe/cyl pressures adjust as they eventually bring the train to a stop. The graphics can be nice, and seems many in-game objects have detailed dynamic behavior, from trees which have different graphics for each season, to train cars which have specific loading/unloading animations. The content update hub is also a place for users to post their own content, and for other players to add it to their own collection, not unlike the steam workshop. One can download locomotives, stock, scenery, routes, sessions, etc. which the community has uploaded simply by searching the interface and choosing to download it. The system addresses revisions by content publishers in the community so that new revisions are included when other players with their content perform normal content updates.

The game has a surveyor mode, where you can create your own train routes and sessions, laying out terrain, tracks, signals, scenery, triggers, session start/end points, etc.. I played with it a little, covering the wireframe ground with snow and a loop of track that had a switch leading off to a roundhouse, in which I had some community-provided engines. I got distracted long before I created anything fancy. As others have documented, building a world is a very time consuming process, and some people take months or years on works which they still consider incomplete. While working on your route/session in surveyor mode, you can fire up driver mode to drive through your creation and test it out and have some fun. If you are happy with the results, you can then publish them to the hub of community content.

All in all, I think this game is a great sandbox, with some crazy demanding requirements for full graphics performance, and a handful of glitchy/buggy sessions. While the community may continue to contribute content to the game, allowing content to continue to evolve, the engine is dated and not looking like it will ever have its performance-based frustrations addressed. For the retail price, there are almost certainly more actively developed train simulator solutions. If you already own it though, or it is on sale, you may get many hours of fun out of it.