Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Nov 28, 2013

  This was a great game when released, but now it's showing its age. It's satisfyingly challenging, especially on the higher difficulty settings. It's fun laying out your railway and you get a good sense of getting better at the game the more you play it, as you get involved with the more advanced functions, such as personal wealth and the stock market. The differing goals on each level, the changing emphasis depending on the year and the big shift between difficulty levels are easily enough to hold your interest over the long-term. While there's some luck involved, particularly with the economy, success is mostly a case of skill and planning. The economic model is good enough, if not spectacular. On the downside, the user interface looks and feels like it was designed in 1998 (as it was). It can be hard finding some of the more important functions (or even the existence of them in some cases). I would recommend at least scanning through the manual. The graphics are perfectly functional - as an isometric rather than a 3D game, they've aged better than most of this vintage. The intra-level cutscenes set the scene for the level quite well. I enjoyed the bluegrass music, even though I'm not a fan of the genre - it fits the pace of the game exactly. As in common with many games in this genre, there's a "tipping point" at each level where you're sure that you'll be successful. The game has ten speed levels and this comes in very handy at that point. If you're having trouble deciding, "Railroad Tycoon 3" is definitely the better game, particularly the economic model and user interface. However this can be difficult to get running on modern systems. "Railroads!" is almost a different kind of game, much easier and less in-depth - I didn't like it. If you like management sims, you should get a lot of enjoyment out of this, particularly as it's so cheap. If you're not sure, or haven't played that style of game much, you'll probably be better off buying something more modern.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 2, 2014

  This old game is.. just perfecly made... just wish had sources to make it updated to todays computers (Multiprocessing, dirextx). While my wish is not coming true, I just enjoy playing this game.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 12, 2014

  $5? You wont go wrong buying this! I've been playing since it was originally released way back in 1998, I believe this is the greatest strategy/train game (board or PC) ever. The graphics aren't REAL bad, I sure wish they would redo it with improved 1920 x 1080 high resolution graphics, those old trains would really look great! As it is though, they still look OK IMO. But if you can get past the graphics, you will not be disappointed. Nice atmosphere too. It has improved AI since incorporated to STEAM. Harder! 7.5/10 as it sits. Windows 8 with Intel i5 and gforce GPU. Works great! Update, upgraded to Win 10, and runs well
• gamedeal user

  May 19, 2020

  I have over 4000 hours in this game. I played it over 100 hours in the last 2 weeks. I have played it since release in 1998. As of 2020 there is still no better railroad management game. By comparison Railroad Tycoon 3 sucks, Sid Meier's Railroads sucks, Chris Sawyer's Locomotion sucks, Railroad Corporation sucks, Railroad Pioneer sucks, and Mashinky sucks. Did I miss anything? I never played A-Train and Transport Fever isn't really comparable. I really wish we had a Railroad Tycoon 2 for aircraft.
• gamedeal user

  May 30, 2014

  Railroad Tycoon 2 is in my opinion the best railroad company simulator there ever was. It is reasonable in difficulty, graphics did not age too terribly and while it is simplified a bit, the corelations between products and different buildings spawning on the map through time give it endless replayability. It is on par with Transport Tycoon, so If you liked that one, you will also love this game. It is obviously very old, so approach with caution, If you never actually heard of it before.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 16, 2015

  Yes!!! Works like a charm on Windows 10. My favorite game of all time finally works again.
• gamedeal user

  Jul 27, 2021

  This game (gameplay) is very fun and has more depth than the first, second or third appearance betrays. I played this game years ago and have been starving for a comparable alternative ever since. Never to find any. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this Steam version of the game, as it is not adequately ported/updated to allow for windowed mode. With today's high end computers and everyone having windows 10/wide or ultra wide monitors, this sin is unforgivable as it causes the game to appear blurry or leaves large sections of the game off-screen and even at the best format (after fiddling with the game/system-setting for days and searching the web for fixes that never turn out) the game will still stretch the 1024x768 resolution across your wide/ultra-wide monitor making everything distorted and text very difficult to read on a ultra-wide like mine. The game does have an in-game option to set the game to windowed, but it doesn't allow you to set that option unless your desktop colour depth is 16bit or 8bit, which Windows 10 does not allow. Therefore, you are never able to actually set the game to windowed, and the stretch/blurry/off-screen issues remain. I even tried DxWnd.exe and fiddled for many hours with various settings, many of which can potentially mess up your computer or cause damage to it, but it was fruitless. I encountered a Steam page where a user provides DxWnd settings that are supposed to work for RT2, but they didn't work for me, and nothing I did was able to force the game into windowed mode. And no, setting the properties of the application to force 8-16 bit colour doesn't work either; the game doesnt detect the per-application colour bit-depth, it is detecting the windows desktop bit-depth, which cannot be lowered from 32bit in windows 10. If anyone HAS actually been able to find a solution to this issue then please leave a comment and help us wide-screen sufferers out! Thank you in advance! UPDATE: I have been able to narrow down that the settings config file (rt2_tsc.CFG) in the root RT2 folder stores the values for the in-game options, including the windowed mode option. However, I am unable to decipher and alter the file to manually set the file to start the game windowed. If anyone has been able to set their game to windowed (whether in windows 10 or any other OS) your rt2_tsc.CFG file would be exceedingly valuable to everyone trying to get their game to go windowed in windows 10/etc. As far as my research goes, once you have set the windowed option in the game, then the game stays windowed, but we just aren't able to set it in windows 10 bcus the afforementioned issues. Therefore, anyone able to upload their config file to a place on the web for download would enable everyone to play in windowed mode who cannot now do so. If you DO have a windowed-set config file and are able to provide it for download, please post a comment to this post and provide the details of that godsend. Thank!
• gamedeal user

  Dec 18, 2014

  This game is kickass! It engages your brain - memory and planning are paramount - while also having an excellent American folk soundtrack of guitars and harmonicas. Daft numbers of scenarios & campaigns, all with inherent replayability, can be boosted to astronomical proportions (https://codeload.github.com/oseparovic/RRT2Maps/zip/master << that's a metric f*ck-tonne of extra maps & scenarios). I have a thing for older games - they tended to be more demanding and more mentally stimulating than modern games - and this fully lives up to those ideals. The game consists of competing with AI or human-controlled opponents (or not, if that's what you want) to connect trade resources on a map, against the backdrop of a potentially lethal economy and advancing technology. The right scenarios (in the zip I linked to above) will let you go for >150 years - some are even without a time limit - but you typically are presented goals - specific things to achieve by a specific time, in order to get a bronze, silver or gold medal (these goals are usually along the lines of "Connect point x to point y, move twelvety tonnes of cargo K between those two points and amass $------ personal fortune by date z"). I give you fair warning, the graphics aren't going to blow you away, not by a long shot, but the complexity, detail and the intense addictiveness of the game should tickle you if you're prone to being tickled by a game of this type.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 31, 2015

  The best railroad game i ever player. Back to 1998 i was only about 10 years old, this game gave me so much fun.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 26, 2015

  [h1]I have played this game from the CD for many hours, just bought Steam version. You may trust my review.[/h1] [i]This ain't yo mamma's kind of game.[/i] No this ain't. Railroad Tycoon 2, in my opinion the best of all train games new or old, is one that'll make you frustrated by all means whilst keeping you up till all hours of the night. Let me explain why. The rail building is not easy. You must pick your terrain carefully and stategically. Mountains will cost you more, and slow your trains down. Plains are cheaper and don't require heavy-duty 3-Truck Shay trains. Deciding which cities to connect together via a rail also takes thought. The larger the city, the more passenger and mail revenue is to be had. The maps in this game are realistically made (Alaska map looks like Alaska). But when you do finally get your rail system figured out, it's time to turn to the Stock Market. Very useful in making lots of personal cash, issuing stock for some extra company cash, or merging with another rail company. Invest wisely, the AI in this game were created intelligently. For example if you see Jay Gould in your game (look him up:) watch your back, while other tycoons may not even utilize the Market at all. Every tycoon Character in this game has a different personality. So in conclusion, this game is 17+ years old and out of every rail game out right now, I still choose to play ol' RRT2. Yes max res is 1024 x 768, maybe an HD version would pop up someday? This game takes time to learn, but once down you will definently need a better office chair and a comfortable mouse pad. Also there are websites out to download user created maps/scenarios, and a map editor to create your own (this comes with game). Much replayability.