Reviews of Train Simulator 2013

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I have been a train lover since I was a kid and this game brings it all home. The switching in the yard is tough, a lot going on you must be aware of. I got the USA collection and almost every train you could want to run is here. The steam locomotives have a deep learning curve. I ran out of water the first couple of times. You cannot run these like diesel. You must balance the regulator and reverser just like a real steam engine. Keep the water up, I got stuck a few times on Donner Pass with the Cab forward and had to build up steam before I could get going again, but what a rush when I made it. The scenery is also beautiful. I live in Reno and have taken the Amtrak to Sacramento many times and the route is right on. I am a diehard Southern Pacific fan and they even have the SD40 tunnel motor to get through the pass's tunnels. I also enjoy the European trains, very different and enjoyable. If your like me and could watch trains all day then you will love driving them in this game. A railfans delight. Gotta go, makin a run to Mojave.

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My first ever Railroad Simulator was the one you see in the title, I won't get into it here but my experience with it was truly awful. It is riddled with bugs.

Out of frustration I looked for another Railroad Simulator and found Railworks 2, as I bought it so close to the release of Railworks 3 I got a free upgrade to that via Steam. Nice touch. The game has simply loads of scenarios to drive, as I'm Irish I particularly love the BR Blues and Sommerset Dorset Steam Railway. I would prefer some Irish railways but it looks like I'm going to have to create it. That's OK, it's easier to create sceanrios in Railworks 3 and make good ones at that. Give me a few years to put the Irish Midland Great Western Railway rail network together. I have no idea how to design locomotives but first things first.

Since I moved to the Unites States and living not very far from a Union Pacific Switching Yard, I've become interested in them. Driving their locomotives over the Cajon Pass is great fun, more so because I see them all the time. Another project is to recreate this town, Eugene at the height of it's railroad era. There are spur lines going everywhere, I need a map before I can begin.

I could compare both simulators side by side and each has both good and bad points over the other. The main thing that sticks out about Railroad Simulator 2012 is that it doesn't work. It's something I call "Irritainment". Railworks 3 on the other hand does work, I wish the cab view and controls were more like RR2012, but they're not, still the simulator WORKS. The executable has a tendency to stop working on my machine sometimes. It just drops out and I'll have to restart it. It has been known to do it a lot in some particular scenarios it seems to have a lot of problems with "Call of Duty" with Union Pacific on the Cajon Pass Route and crashes eveytime you approach Castlerock Intermodal Load/Unload. It can also get quite tempermental about Quitting and Reloading if you try it more than twice. Overall I have to say it's been an enjoyable ride, there's tons of DLC, so I'm not going to be stuck anytime soon.

So in summary Do you want to drive trains in the USA, England, and Germany? Then this is the one to go for.

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I ordered this simulator thinking that the pretty package with "Train Simulator" all over it would actually contain a CD with a Train Simulator program on it, that I could install on my computer and use to learn how to drive trains. What I got instead was a CD (with Train Simulator all over it) that contained nothing but a mandatory account setup for "Steam", which turned out to be a time-consuming and invasive online account that I had to set up before I could do anything else. After all, am I buying a train simulator, or a machine gun permit?

Once that laborious process was complete, I had to mess around their complicated menus to find out that I actually had to download the entire program from the internet, which took 30 minutes. In the simulator program itself, there is no "Help" menu, instruction manual, or tutorial about driving a train. You are thrown to the wolves on this one, and if you don't already know what you're doing, good luck with the learning curve.

When I buy software on a CD, I expect that software to be ON that CD, so I can install it. Sure, we're all used to getting online to download updates to our newly installed software, but this package added a bunch of hoops to jump through that made this process way too complicated. Why should I wait several days for a CD to arrive, when I have to download the actual simulator anyway? Furthermore, this game CANNOT be played unless you are connected to the internet. So, if your signal is down, you are SOL. None of these facts were stated on Amazon, but are vaguely stated in the fine print on the back of the CD box.

After writing down 53 keyboard commands for the train I chose to drive (yes, there is no on-screen help menu, unless you want to pause your scenario EVERY time you need to figure out what button does what), I finally got the train moving. I even figured out how to stop it, no thanks to this non-intuitive software. And if you do pause, be prepared to wait a long time for it to reload and resume.

For my first exposure to a train simulator, I was very disappointed with this nonsense, and consider it a dismal failure. I want to play with a train, not get an online "account", be part of a "community", or jump through a bunch of password and registration hoops just to download what should have already been on my disk.. I also expect an instruction manual, like the ones that come with all the other software I've ever bought.

Buyer beware....if you get this package, you're going to waste a lot of time just getting to the point where you can actually see a train....then good luck learning to drive it. Furthermore, the customer support is nonexistant. LakePlaceGames dragged me through a drawn-out correspondence that went from "We don't know what you're talking about" to "Are you SURE the game is like that?" to "It's not our job to explain every detail in the products we sell" to "Sorry for your luck". Once in awhile, you deal with a business that would rather quibble about a $35 refund, than to accommodate a customer and stand by their product. This is one of those businesses. Their attitude is, it's not their job to advertise their product accurately, and if you're dissatisfied, it sucks to be you.

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I concur with reviewer David Owens. Although I purchased the game as a dvd,

I was still required to establish a password and user account with " STEAM "

in order to install the game and run it. And each and every time I want to play the game I have to log in and if the user and password are forgotten or mis-placed, changing them can be " hoop-jumping-through ".

I was willing to tolerate this but the final insult came when I opened the game folder where Steam stores the computers specs and settings and not only was that info listed but everything residing on the hard drive was listed, programs, utilities etc. I mean EVERYTHING. At that juncture I decided that that was too much information for a solitary program.

Why would STEAM need to know what all is on my computers hard drive ?

What personal information is being sent back to them ?

So I promptly uninstalled Train Sim 2013 and did a system restore to remove any and all traces. I can understand them needing Copy Protection but this carrying it a bit too far and the end-user should not have to log-in to the Internet each and every time to play a video game he or she just purchased at a brick and mortar store. It's a good game but comes with uncessary baggage.

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I found the program installation was a bit difficult. You must install "Steam" first then add this program to "Steam". There after you start "Steam" to use the program. Steam seems to be a carrier for games, it is said this is the best way to use your games. This is all new to me, (There could be other ways to install). I do not have many games so this review is not from one who has a lot of experience.

The instruction did not inform me to install the way I just mentioned, I quite by accident found this out when I tried to install it the way I have installed programs for years. (Double click on the xxx.exe file or auto start the installation, select from a menu) The program is well laid out, graphics are great (just make sure you have a good video card). Be prepared for the learning curve to get up and running with out selecting the "easy" method.

Cons: Not to friendly a installation. It broke the Train sim from N3V already installed and working fine.( had to reinstall it) The more powerful the video card and computer you have the better. (My set up: video card ge Force 550 ti, w/1GB memory, CPU Intel i5 2600k) 8GB memory) with this setup thing went rather smoothly just a small hick up here and there)