Transport Fever

Ever wanted your own transport company? Oh, that sounds like an incredible amount stress? Okay, what about pretending to run one in a video game? Awesome, then this is for you. Emerging as a transport tycoon, you build up your business and make your money by connecting surrounding areas that require your various services in Transport Fever by Urban Games.

Gameplay

The point of the game is to increase the size and productivity of your business while simultaneously assisting and improving the developmental benefits that the game world gains from your work. The game provides over 120 trains, ships, aircrafts, trams, buses and trucks for the player to use. Pleasantly intuitive with great controls, some really nice graphics and a great amount of logic present throughout.

The micro-management aspect is what this title is all about and it’s very well done. There are two different experiences to have; one is Endless game where the player is allowed to experience more than 150 years of transportation history. Constructing networks of road, water, rail and air to get your shipment to where they need to go. There is also a Campaign mode which has 2 separate campaigns in it. You play in either an American or European campaign which plays throughout historical moments of the 19th and 20th centuries. I personally enjoyed the game a great deal; it reminded me a lot of Cities: Skylines, that same level of detail and effort that was put in to make it as realistic a simulation as possible.

Visuals

There’s a great amount of detail that’s been put into this game in many different ways. There is dynamically simulated urban development and passenger movement. There is Vehicle simulation with realistic colouring and aging. Randomly generated terrains, physics based graphics, lighting and simulations.

Atmosphere

There is an ambience or atmosphere that comes with this game that you almost wouldn’t expect. It really absorbs you, at almost no point did I feel bored or like there was nothing to do, it accommodates how much you want to play and how hard you go at it. It’s pleasant and relaxing, I would sometimes have a podcast on in the background and find that I have played it for a few hours without realising.

This is something that not a lot of games can pull off, some micro-managing games require a tremendous amount of thought and focus and although this game rewards that, I never found it demanded it.

Pros

• Great Detail
• Brilliant atmosphere

Cons

• You run a transport company so there are opportunities to rinse customers by making the journey really long and getting lots of money. It can make the game really easy.
• Game can slow down after you’ve created a decent network. Can accidentally make yourself too efficient.