Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Jan 2, 2022

  My main gripes: Playability: Controls: - Do you like ice levels? Do you like how you run in your dreams? No? Then you won't like walking in this game. You take a full second to completely stop when you release the corresponding WASD key. There's an underpass in your workshop to check under trains, with stairs on either end and a wooden pallet bridging the "job reception" area and the "tables to fix stuff" area. And trying to cross it, you will immediately notice something: Even though you can't jump, there's simulated gravity physics in this game, meaning that every time you try to go upstairs or cross the pallet, you get slowed down and, so to speak, "bounce off" the obstacle at your feet. So moving around doesn't feel like how actual human beings walk, but it isn't "reworked for your convenience", either. You sort of feel like a balloon, floating around the game area but also crashing against every foot-level object. Oh, and: the pallet bridge I mentioned? when a train arrives to your workshop, it will act as a wall close yet far enough to the pallet, that if you were to get close enough to it, you get stuck as if in a crevice, and it takes at least a full second to get back on. - There's no control settings. None. Do you like how you turn? Oh, you don't? would you rather have tighter or more loose lookaround speed? Well your best bet is to mess around with the mouse's DPI settings if applicable, or to alt-tab out of the game, go to your computer's settings, and fix the mouse sensitivity from there, and repeat this every time you're about to play this game. Other: - I maybe would have kept this game and not tried to get a refund if there were any achievements to get. Because there are none, there's no "end goal" in sight. It's just do this order, which nobody will know that you did, and then do another submit, get your payment, look for another order, rinse and repeat, until you get money to buy machines that will make your labor obsolete and replace you, which ironically you will see as a good thing, because by then you've spent months doing routine procedures for free. That's it, that's the epigraph of my review. "Because you played this, you might also be interested in: Slavery." Maybe I'm being harsh and peevy with this game, but if you have a simulated experience that feels awkward to play, either you're playing a physics parody like Hand Simulator or Surgeon Simulator, where the punchline is the QWOP-like controls, or you just have a game that your pootential customer won't enjoy.
• Puzzler

  Jan 24, 2023

  This developer and Publisher Atomic Jelly , just where ignored , their games are money grabber only , so this people are red flaged for me .
• gamedeal user

  Mar 24, 2017

  It's fun, but I'm not sure I'll stick with it for long. It does some things better than CMS2015 and some things worse, and I think the "worse" will kill the long term playability. Fortunately it's relatively cheap, and hopefully there will be some patches and/or DLC to make improvements. Loading screens are drastically reduced compared to CMS2015, but instead there are a number of unskippable popups and time delays eat up a few seconds repeatedly. For example when you repair a part, it takes a couple seconds to repair and then a couple more to tell you success vs failure. When you finish a job, it takes a few seconds to tell you how much money you made. Compare that to CMS2015, where you can repair parts and finish jobs extremely quickly. It's not too bad, but I suspect that after a few hours of gameplay that's going to be very annoying. One thing I'm noticing is that it seems to be a bit light on advancement and customization. You can upgrade your repair stations and screw gun, but that's it. There are no additional diagnostic tools you can buy, or additional repair types you can research (ex: body work, paint, etc). In CMS2015, you could also customize your garage, buy cars at auction for yourself, and do a bit of driving (if you can stand the loading screens). It felt more like *your* garage, *your* business, *your* hobby. This feels more like "doing your job". I mean, it doesn't even give names to the engines you're working on! Each of the 3 engine types (diesel, electric, steam) seem to have no variations wthin them. That is, all diesels are exactly the same. For now, I think this is a "no", unless you get it on sale or just really like "generic train engines".
• gamedeal user

  Mar 25, 2017

  UPDATED as of 4-4-17, all updates are installed. Some issues are fixed but others still stand. I still do not reccommend this game. Part names are still mostly wrong (and often nowhere close to right) and part disasembly and reassembly order inconsistencies persist. I hate to say this but do not buy this game. Not yet at least. It is not worth $15 (or even its $10 sale price) in its current state. I would hesitate to even pay $5 right now. There are a number of issues. Hopefully these are release bugs that will be quickly fixed. (Possibly fixed, haven't tested) First off, on some jobs, the crane will move on its own and not stop moving. I tried restarting the mission and even the game but it did not fix the problem. I was only able to get past the job by luck of the crane lining up by chance. (UPDATED) The fuse problem is fixed. (UPDATED, somewhat fixed, explained below) Third, and this is more of a realism issue, the diesel locomotives have spark plugs... This seriously put me off. Those that are mechanically inclined will realize that diesel engines DO NOT have spark plugs. Gas engines do and these obviously are not gas engines, they are diesel. Update to spark plugs.... They are now glow plugs. Okay, that's better. However, these locomtive engines don't have glow plugs either. Besides that, glowplugs don't have springs and are not driven by a rocker arm from the camshaft. On top of that, the glowplugs in the game are actually where the fuel injectors should be. This isn't nagging about not enough realism, this is just trying to fix what is already in the game. (UPDATED) The game remembering settings is fixed. There still isn't a setting for mouse sensitivity though. C'mon devs... The mouse sensitivty is rediculous right now. (UPDATED) The repair of rear leaf springs has been fixed. It would also be nice to see more bolts in parts. It feels like almost everything is click to remove and very few parts have any bolts that you have to actually use the wrench on. (Somewhat improved in the latest update now but still not great). (UPDATED) Also, completing all 25 jobs at the steam depot automatically completes all 25 jobs at all other depots as well. I had only done the first 12 at both the diesel and electric depots. After completing the last steam job and the credits rolled, everything was completed everywhere. I am a train fanatic and I love the concept of the game, working on trains, but I find it hard to love the game when it has these issues. And it's only taken an hour of gameplay to find them. Devs, please work out these bugs. I can put up with other minor issues and nuisances I've come across but seriously, make a game worth buying. This one isn't right now. I will improve my review if these issues are fixed.
• gamedeal user

  May 30, 2017

  I was waiting for this game for a while. Being a fan of trains and car mechanic simulator I knew what to expect and I got just that. So what can you expect? Let me add pros and cons first. Pros - You get a neat playground which is technically a miniature railway you can drive along. If you like lomotives you can strip them down in a relatively good detail but not too detailed to bore you to death. You get some crane action in case you get a derailed locomotive. Animations and loading screens are done neatly Cons - Some people may find the details too in depth or too shallow, for example I miss bodywork (but you cannot satisfy everyone) The physics in the miniature railway are... a bit off. You can never derail. Gameplay gets a bit repetitive after a while. And I miss some diagnostic tools like in Car Mechanic Simulator. Before I get too much in depth what you do in the game is basically this: In some cases you need to rescue an engine somewhere on your map sometimes with crane You get it do depot, remove all damaged parts, attempt to repair them if it fails buy new ones and put them back in. You can also improve your workbenches which gives you a better chance of repair. I mentioned level of detail that is given to locomotives. As for me I unlocked all three depots so I have seen Diesel, Electric and Steam. I will take a good example of a diesel engine that is the first you are working on. You replace entire modules for example fuel tanks, but in some cases go to pretty nice details for example the engine is detailed down to pistons level. Electric engine is the same you can tear down the engine to individual components, replace single fire extinguisher bottles even switches and fuses in the engine room but hydraulic assemblies are huge boxes with 1 or 2 hoses. For the price they are asking it is an adequate game. Great if you want to pass some time doing something where you don´t need to think too hard once you learn the game mechanics. Graphics are pretty neat. I actually wonder when can I expect an airplane mechanic simulator from this company. PS: Dear developers if you are reading this there are some pretty exciting machines on rail constructions not just locomotives. I would suggest a DLC with something like Plasser and Theurer equipement for rail construction, another fine DLC may be TGV units and number three there are also railcars and carriages.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 25, 2017

  The train mechanic sim, that thought it was car mechanic- but worse. If you've ever played a car mechanic game (any year), then you'll know that you need money to upgrade your workshop and buy parts - well the same applies to this game and it's routine of buying parts, fixing the car, rinise and repeat. The only difference with this game is that you buy the parts, drive to 'find' the broken train or 'rescue' it from a ditch, fix the train, rinse and repeat. All the following dislikes ruined this game - [list] [*]The lack of details on the actual trains, including limited fixable train parts are minimal or parts that would normally be on a train - non-existent. [*]This game is too easy and feels like a grind-fest. [*]The whole 'driving' to fetch another train is rubbish - no details, driving is too simple, uses sounds from Microsoft train sim, no realistic physics i.e. can't derail and the train goes faster than it actually is going. [*]The use of the crane to 'pickup' another derailed train makes no sense - you can pick up a whole loco, with 1 (one) small rerailer crane; where as real life it'd take 2 or 3 cranes to. [*]The actual body-work does not involve any repairs or fixes. [*]You can only work on 1 train at a time, compared to car mechanic with 3. [*]The whole 'open world' is a lie and so is the pictures on the store page, you're stuck to rails, so you can't explore where you go - however, you can choose which limited way to get around the map. [*]On the topic of 'the map' it oftens glitches out to the point where you can't click the switch switches to change which way you're going with your mouse, forcing you to stop the train, press esc, restart the train and trying to reclick it again. [*]You can not change the switches with the map alone. [/list] I can not recommend this game, it feels rushed, unfinished, broken, unrealistic and just does not feel right compared to other train 'sim' games. 3/10 stars
• gamedeal user

  Feb 7, 2019

  DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. let me save you a lot of time and aggravation. when working on any of the train models. you are stuck looking at the center of the engine and you have only a limited amount you can zoom out. the part you may need to replace or repair may not be in your field of view making it unable to complete a job order and making the game grind to a halt because there is no way to cancel a job once its taken. again do NOT buy this game
• gamedeal user

  Feb 10, 2019

  First thing first: Every single argument in this review is made under the circumstance that I got this game on sale for [b]$1[/b]. Overall the gameplay may be interesting for 15 minutes. The completion of objectives may give you some satisfaction, but after a certain point it becomes boring and there is nothing more interesting (until they give you a new model to toy with). The economy system that the game features is really just a joke. I can't really understand what serious economy is involved here. At least in my view, the game tutorial seems a bit puzzling, especially when the game try to explain the "economy system". The economy system is just "either repair this gear for 0.1X with a risk of 10% of damaging the gear instead of repairing or sell the damaged gear and buy a new one". It may adds a bit value, but so far I only calculated once whether which is more profitable while only exceeding the repair budget once. I'd say the added depth is minimal. OK, this game isn't that bad. The devs has put up a game with a lot of potential but didn't use it well. There are two actual interesting points here: disassemble a locomotive completely then reassemble it back, and driving around freely through the map. For the first part, I have to say this is by far more interesting than playing with train models IRL if you like machines, especially for the last kind of locomotive the game featured: steam locomotives. Unlike previous two type, you can disassemble 95% of the part of this one (what left is the hull). The second part is actually, well, a little surprising, as it seems for fitting in a train sim game. Anyhow, I'd consider this game to have a reasonable total play time of 5 hours, and extra 30 minutes for every other week. I consider this worth 1-3$. Buying it not on sale seems pretty bad idea.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 10, 2019

  I'll put it in short: this game sucks. It really does. There are so many problems I have with it or experienced in only the 30 minutes I played it (that's how long it took me to get bored of it) that it definitely is not worth even the $2.50 I paid for it, being 85% off at the time of this review. Biggest issues: -3 types of locomotives to fix? Sure, except you only get 3 locomotives of different types. Every locomotive of the same type is 100% mechanically identical to the rest, the only difference being a reskin of the body, and after you fix a couple of the same thing it gets repetitive and boring *extremely* fast. -I have a pretty good computer and was only getting about 15 frames per second at best, even with the settings turned down and many features turned off. When in outside the shop driving the train that retrieves the broken down ones, it was down to about 10 frames per second. -BUGS! So many bugs! EX: When pulling up stuff like the repair bench, some of the text looked like wingdings, the words were totally illegible. Another bug is when driving the train and setting the points to where you want to go, your train may still go the opposite way over the switch despite the map saying it was set correctly. Turn right to go left, am I right? Oh and despite stuff costing "money" there was no where I could find that told me how much I actually had. And the old parts you strip from locomotives all disappear into thin air after you complete the job, so you can't even sell them back for the nonexistent money. -The tracks outside the shop were clearly made with minimal effort. 180* turns with a radius of about 40 feet, random sharp turns everywhere, and some of the game assets were clearly recycled from other games because the one part of the line looks like they took a generic road bridge and laid tracks over it. I don't know about where these devs are from but I have never seen a railway go over a humpback bridge before. -Wonky controls. Camera view moves delayed relative to the mouse, so if you want to turn to look at something it takes the camera an extra second to actually get to where you are pointing, which is absolutely frustrating. It can also be difficult to get your mouse over very small parts such as the bolts because of this. Oh and did I mention the camera likes to slowly bounce around because the devs think everyone behaves as if they are lightheaded and on the verge of passing out? I mean, looking at my PC here I don't bounce my head around while sitting still looking at a fixed object but that's just me. I could go on and on about this game but I just wanted to list my most infuriating issues. If only a little more effort was put into this game it could easily have been fantastic and genuinely fun to play, but right now it's not and has been basically abandoned as a sunken boat of golden potential. Clearly just another pig-with-lipstick money grab from PlayWay. Don't play this game, even if you somehow get it for free. You'll regret the time you'd waste on it.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 3, 2019

  It's pretty lame and not much for content really. Hey it was under a dollar and let me kill time until halo came out? More of a passage of time use then really any sort of progression and really enjoyment... HORRIBLE game proformance with a lot in your inventory and my PC is no lightweight....