Recent reviews by Ant Craft

Fife Circle Line is Rivet Games' second route release for Train Sim World 4, and follows their highly successful Berninalinie route that was released in January. Rivet Games has a spotty reputation, with some of their content being well-made and quite enjoyable, but other content having issues. So let's see where Fife Circle fits in with that...


The Class 170:

I'll start off with the good - the class 170. Rivet Games hasn't always gotten trains right - their class 150 that came with West Cornwall Local being a prime example of this. The 170 however is not that, and is actually pretty good. It features your standard UK safety systems - AWS, TPWS and DSD/DVD, as well as some of the other things we've come to expect of UK content such as (the very basic implementation of) GSM-R. There is also some really cool details seen in the real life 170, such as the old school LCD display with the time on the speedo, and the train fault light briefly illuminating when changing the reverser position.

The physics is very close, if not spot on, to its real-life counterpart based on video footage and acceleration and braking figures. We also see some of the quirks of the 170 modelled too, such as the throttle being capped limited to the equivalent of notch 5 until 15mph, where it then allows the full throttle to be used, and the speed limiter that stops the train from accelerating any further upon reaching 102mph.

The sounds aren't perfect, I'll make that clear, but they are very close to the real-life train and although they aren't spot on, I don't think the slight discrepancy really takes anything away from the experience of the 170. The class 170 is one of the few trains to feature announcements in Train Sim World, and is one of the even fewer trains that play those announcements automatically. The announcements aren't the real-life recordings due to licensing and legal limitations, but they do sound convincing and definitely make for a more immersive drive.

The PIS sadly falls a little short of what we're used to, with the font and colour being inaccurate on the front and interior displays, and the interior displays only displaying the destination and that's it. There is definitely room for improvement here, there is no denying it. You are however allowed to change the destination to whatever you want through a destination selector in the cab, and Rivet Games have said they plan to integrate the dynamic destinations system into the train so that it can display destinations on any route.


The Route:

And now for the bad... At first glance, the route is nice. The route is of decent length, and includes the northern and southern sections of the circle, which allows for some nice variety in service patterns. We have the iconic Forth Rail Bridge, an impressive feat of engineering and is no less impressive to look at and drive across in the game. The modelling of this masterpiece is overall pretty good. There are some discrepancies in where the various trusses connect, and the night lighting is quite intrusive as it's right in the middle of the 2 tracks so it's very bright in the cab, and you can see the various point lights floating there too when using volumetric fog. Neither is really a deal breaker, but they are noticeable. The scenery out of Waverly up until where the route splits from the Edinburgh - Glasgow route is all taken from said route, also made by Rivet Games, and remains largely unchanged. The other side of Edinburgh Waverly is now accessible, I'll explain why in a little bit, and there are the appropriate route collectables available in Waverly and Haymarket that apply to this route. This section of the route and it's scenery is of good quality, and I can't really fault it.

It's once we leave this section of the route and head north that we start seeing issues with the scenery. The general theme of issues comes down to lacking line-side scenery, with many places feeling quite barren. This really isn't helped when a week prior, Dovetail released their Suffragette line, which while set in busy London, is packed full of detail and there is plenty to see. Fife Circle may be more rural, but that doesn't mean there still can't be detail, yet, there is a distinct lack of it in many places. When there is detail, it can be hit-and-miss. There are some scenes that do look good, but there is some scenes that could look better. Some of the building models do look a little basic, although it's a large improvement over what we saw in the route preview, where some of the buildings look like they could've been in a Roblox game. That doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement though, and hopefully said improvement will materialise in post-release updates.

The stations themselves are all fairly well modelled, but Rivet Games committed what I consider to be a cardinal sin, and is completely unacceptable - due to the unique way you change platforms at Lochgelly, which requires you to leave the station, walking down the road a little, before re-entering the station. One side has stairs down to the street, while the other has a ramp with parking, making it a fair walk to change platforms. Because of this though, instead of allowing the player to make this journey if they wish to change platforms, and make sure it was fully modded, they instead took the easy way out and simply put a teleport point on each of the platforms. When the whole idea of TSW is the freedom you're provided to explore the route, it goes against everything TSW goes for, and it's acceptable at all in my opinion.

The timetable is another large disappointment, with a lot of 170 services missing compared to the real-life timetable. There are some layers present, LNER 801s are present at Waverley on the eastern platforms (the reason why that section of the station was opened up for players), and 385 services are present from the western half of the station, out through Haymarket and onto their respective routes. Some of these services are drive-able too, with more services being available for the 385 than the 170 itself, however, only the 4 car variant of the 385 layers in, with the 3 car variant strangely missing completely although it's also included in Edinburgh - Glasgow as well. Rivet Games have announced some of their plans for the first post-release update though, and have said they will be adding additional class 170 services, as well as some railtour services, so the timetable scene seems set to improve.


Conclusion:

Fife Circle is a route with a lot of potential. The class 170 is really solid as it stands, and is a very enjoyable drive. The route itself is nice, but it just falls short in far too many places at the moment for me to be able to recommend it at its full price. With a generous discount, then yes, it's probably worth buying, even if it's just for the class 170. Rivet Games have said they'll be improving things post-release, although the majority of these improvements are unknown. What we do know is that the timetable will be getting more services, and a free route extension will be coming as an update in a few months after the real-life extension to Leven opens. Skyhook Games, another 3rd party developer, is also developing a ScotRail class 158 DLC for this route, which will help introduce more variety and maybe more services to the route too. However, this will be an additional piece of paid content. Maybe in 3-6 months time, this route will have improved enough to the point I can recommend it, but in its current state, I cannot.


Summary:

Rating: 5/10 - Not Recommended

Pros:

- Class 170 is really good quality
- Forth Rail Bridge is nicely modelled and looks great
- Route is a good length, and the inclusion of the upper and lower half of the circle adds variety to service patterns

Cons:

- Route scenery needs quite a lot more work in many places
- Timetable is quite lacking in its current state
- The current implementation of Lochgelly station is unacceptable atm

As the Train Sim World franchise continues to evolve, Train Sim World 3 becomes the next entry in the franchise.

The improvements and upgrades that Train Sim World 3 offers over Train Sim World 2 are really impressive, elevating the experience and making it look better than ever before. Firstly, the lighting system has been completely re-done, with all the lighting sources now using real life lumen values, providing for much more accurate lighting during both day and night. Secondly, TSW 3 introduces new volumetric clouds. The clouds have never been the best in the Train Sim World franchise, despite seeing many updates to their appearance. However Train Sim World 3 completely changes this, with the new volumetric clouds beating the old clouds by a long shot. Continuing with the theme of weather however, Train Sim World 3 also adds dynamic weather for service mode, allowing for more immersion and a bigger challenge when driving. Some of the smaller changes made to TSW 3 include a brand new UI and menu, improved rain effects, passengers having umbrellas in the rain, all of which help make the game nicer to play and more immersive.

While all that is nice, one of the biggest additions to Train Sim World 3 is the training centre. Giving us a dedicated space to learn the trains they are going to drive has been really nice, for 2 reasons. Firstly, you become familiar with the training centre quickly, allowing you to focus on learning the trains without distractions or needing to memorise the layout of the immediate area. Secondly, it's allowed them to detach loco DLCs (TSW 3 Add-Ons only) from the routes they are made for, allowing you to buy that loco DLC for other routes' substitution without needing to buy the route that train runs on.

If you owned Train Sim World 2, and any of it's DLC, then in Train Sim World 3, all of your DLC and Add-Ons from TSW 2 will carry over to TSW 3. While all the Train Sim World 2 content hasn't been upgraded with the new lighting and clouds, they have had dynamic weather added to them. They've also promised to at least keep the older content bug free, even if there is no plans currently to upgrade the routes with new features.

Overall, I'd recommend Train Sim World 3. Just the upgrades itself makes it worth the money if you ask me, an that's not including the 2 new routes, the extended version of Southeastern Highspeed, or the upgraded version of Spirit of Steam (for Deluxe version only, but also included if you don't get Deluxe but had it in TSW 2).

9/10

Well, where do I start? I've been waiting well over a year for the release of Bus Simulator 21, and have been incredibly excited for it. However, after playing with it for a bit, there has been numerous bugs that make it feel half finished and could have done with a few weeks or months of extra development. To give you an idea of these bugs, I have seen cars just stop dead in the middle of the intersection, and some cars stop when they have a clear path. Then there's been other bugs like button images breaking in some of the pop-ups, and times where my bus wouldn't drive and other times where it would drive on it's own.

Another reason I am bitterly disappointed in BS21 is that a quite a few aspects of the game feel like a step back from what was provided in BS18. For instance, in Bus Sim 18, we had numerous wraps/skins (whatever you want to call them, but I'll call them a skin) and a lot of the skins where generic so you could give your bus something simple. However, the skins in BS21 are all very flashy and over the top, removing the ability to do a basic look on your bus. And we also had the choice to disable the skins showing up on windows, but now that's gone in BS21!?

When they announced that they where introducing timetabling options, I was really excited. However, the system is really basic. But I could have pushed that aside if they let us do a night bus option, as I would have loved to create night routes for my lines (say a route 5 in the day, and an N5 at night with reduced stops for example), and while nothing stops you driving at night, the game will just say your an out of hours bus, which for me totally kills the immersion. There's also other aspects of the game that should be simple to use, yet have been vastly over complicated when they didn't need to be.

So yeah, that's my review of the game. Doesn't cover nearly everything I encountered in my 100+ minutes of gameplay, but covers some of the things I found to be the worse. I'm going to get it refunded now, and maybe I pick it up again in a winter sale when hopefully some stuff has been fixed. But who knows. If I do pick it up in a winter sale, and I think it's changed for the better, I'll be sure to update my review.

Edit: So today's the 25/11/21 (or 11/25 for people in the US), and there has been fixes to the game. I still wouldn't recommend it for now, but it is in a better state than it was, and from following the progress as and when I can, it looks to get better in the future.

I Have A Plan!

Train Sim World 2 (TSW2) is the successor to Train Sim World 2020 (TSW), including new features and marginally touched up graphics due to it using a new version of Unreal Engine 4. There is plenty of content available for Train Sim World 2, primarily featuring routes
from the UK, the US and Germany.

Train Sim World 2 Features

• 3 included routes from the UK, US and Germany
  
• Steam Achievements
  
• Progress tracking
  
• Realistic handling of locos
  
• The ability to get up and walk around
  
• The ability to be a passenger
  
• Carries the users content from TSW to TSW 2*
  
• Wheelslip that reacts to the weather and season (New for TSW2)
  
• A livery designer for trains** (New for TSW2)
  
• A basic scenario designer (New for TSW2)

*1 route and it's 2 loco DLCs are not included for technical reasons
**Not featured on preserved collection content, but is coming in the future


The 3 included routes

Sand Patch Grade: This was the first ever route to be released for Train Sim World (2020), and has received minor updates. This route is great if you like long heavy American freight trains, but can get a bit repetitive and dry for content (due to it being the first route from DTG to test the waters for TSW). This route includes 3 locomotives which are the AC4400CW, the GP38-2 and the SD40-2.

Schnellfahrstrcke Köln - Aachen: This route features the high speed route from the city of Köln (Cologne) to Aachen, reaching an impressive top speed of 250km/h (155mph). This route features the iconic the ICE3M, as well the Talent 2 (which is practically rebuilt from it's earlier TSW rendition). The thing that makes this route great is the options it provides you with, giving you a balanced option of high speed, point to point services, or stopping commuter services. This route also includes content from preserved collection (will be discussed later), further increasing the players options of what to drive.

LU Bakerloo Line - This route features the 14.4 mile (23km) Bakerloo Line, which forms part of the London Underground network. The route includes the 1972 Tube Stock. This route is really special. This is the first time we have had a underground line in the Train Sim World franchise. And while we have had a fair share of underground routes in other train simulators before, TSW 2 just blows them out of the water. From it's authentic, highly details stations, to the feeling of driving close to pitch black tunnels, only hearing the squeal of the wheels on turns and then more often than not the brightly lit station coming out from round a corner provides an incredibly unique experience.


Preserved Collection

Train Sim World 2 provides the owners of Train Sim World 2020 to keep their content, and DLCs, from the original game in Train Sim World 2. While the name preserved may suggest that they aren't working on the past content, although it was their plan at the time, all preserved content will continue to be supported (in TSW2 only). They have even committed to adding features seen in newer routes as well. However, there is one route which hasn't made it to TSW 2: The Northeast Corridor. This also includes it's 2 loco DLCs: The CSX GP40 and the Amtrak SW1000R with it's included Cab Car. This is a very big loss to the American community, since it was the only Amtrak route. This is due to technical reasons however, where the work to make it compatible would have been astronomical and it would have been easier to start from scratch.


About Dovetail Games

While Dovetail Games have had a reputation of not listening to their community in the past, and ignoring bugs in released content, they are starting to (and already have in quite a few ways) change. With the release of TSW 2, the developers have started listening to the community much more, fixing bugs, changing their plans for preserved content to be supported with bug fixes and new features, as well as fundamentally increasing levels of communication to the fan base. While I have always loved Dovetail's products, my opinion of them has never been as positive as it has been right now, and I have high hopes for the future at Dovetail Games and for Train Sim World 2.


Conclusion

Score: 9/10

Train Sim World 2 improves the original Train Sim World 2020 in many ways, providing more realism to the player when driving trains. TSW 2 also allows the players to keep their content from the original game, which is such a good thing to see in an era when most devs try to squeeze money out of their players, and even force players to often rebuy stuff. Dovetail Games are most devs though. They used to be quite a lot like that, but with their change in morals and community communication, they have risen above what so many devs are like now, which I cannot praise any more than I have. And the benefits can be clearly seen in Train Sim World 2 with it's features and planned updates. Train Sim World 2 only get's a 9/10 because it still misses a few few things. The first is of course the aforementioned NEC route and it's loco DLCs. The second is a TSW feature called Mastery, which allows the players to get a few cool, cosmetic rewards. This is however coming, but has no set release date yet.

Had GWE on pre-order when it first released in 2017. I have always enjoyed the route in TSW2020, and now it's out in TSW 2. But in TSW 2, they have also re-mixed some sounds on the route. This is most prominent on the class 166, which now sounds much closer to real life than it originally did.

Ever since the M3 was announced on the 24th April, I have been extremely hyped for it to release, but has it lived up to it's hype?

The M3 comes with everything you'd expect from a loco DLC: a 10 minute long tutorial with a simulated emergency stop; 3 scenarios totalling 85 minutes in length and service mode.



The DLC's 3 scenarios aren't necessarily the longest or most complex scenarios in Train Sim World, with the first scenario having you do a simple 20 minute run with only 2 passenger pickups (1 at the start and end). The 2nd scenario involves some switching action in order to assemble a train. And then there's the last one - not too much to say about it really.

Also, all of the existing M7 scenarios now have M3 AI trains in too.



This DLC doesn't add any new services into service mode, only substituting the M3 into the already existing M7 service mode timetable. With the DLC, there was an update to the LIRR, splitting services into 6, 8 and 10 car services (you can set this using the switch livery menu). The M3 also has this, with 6, 8 and 10 car selections also available. The substitution also works with the AI, with each AI having a 50/50 chance of spawning as an M3 or M7 unit.



Pros

• The M3 is highly detailed, with great textures.
  
• The sounds are fairly accurate (I haven't experienced the trains irl, I have only watched countless hours of videos)
  
• It drives really nicely - it's a little slow to get going as in real life, with plenty of stopping power.
  
• The traction motors sound VERY nice - while you can't hear them inside, you can outside and they sound great.
  
• The head sway feel very realistic of a 40 year old train - it's quite bouncy XD

Cons

• A number of the sounds are re-used from the M7, with the door closing bell being re-used from the NEC's Amfleets
  
• At night, the cab stays fairly illuminated even with the cab door closed, so you don't ever have a truly dark cab at night.
  
• There's a small bug (I think) when using max. braking that the penalty light shows up - doesn't effect you at all, and I am sure it will be fixed.
  
• It would have been nicer to have some longer scenarios, but it doesn't ruin the game play.
  
• It would have also been nice to have some extra services, but it again doesn't ruin the game play.

My rating for the M3: 8/10

Overall, yes, I think the M3 did live up to it's hype. Like with many things in life, there is room for some improvement, but not much because this is a very good train. I could see myself and many others spending hours driving this train up and down the LIRR and on it's several branches. I would have given it a perfect 10/10, but I think it just misses the mark when it comes to some of the re-used sounds, the short scenarios and lack of new services. (Realistically, I would have given it an 7/10 normally for that, but I have been generous with my scoring due to the current events and them all working from home)

This is a very in depth game about survival in the wild. The gameplay is very good, simulating all sorts of dangers in the jungle, such as leaches and jaguars ect, My only criticism is that the story hasn't been developed and their isn't much of a drive to play the game apart from surviving at the moment.

Rating: 7/10

The route offers a nice relaxing drive with great scenery and awesome stations to stop at. with 2 trains and a cab car you can drive, so there is plenty of variation on the route. Included in the dlc is a Union Pacific GP38, which looks wonderful, and it makes a change from CSX in terms American freight trains. The collectables chosen for this route is really nice, with route maps, posters and ticket machines being found at the stations, and the no trespassing signs being found elsewhere, giving you a challenge and the opportunity to explore this awesome route. Now I'm sorry this review is brief, but below, you can find the pros and cons, which there aren't that many of. Since this review has been done in less than 24 hours after the dlc release, I'll update it if I find any more pros and cons or anything worth talking about.

Pros

• There is 2 trains and a cab car included, offering variety
  
• First time we are seeing Union Pacific in the game
  
• The sounds are some of the best in the game
  
• All the stations are very detailed and look stunning
  
• There is 4 types of collectables for you to go out and look for
  
• The passenger cars look really nice

Cons

• The depot and terminal in San Francisco are quite fps heavy - too many trains there in my opinion
  
• The schedule is quite tight and unforgiving

Score
Route detail - 8/10
Route length - 10/10
Train Detail - 10/10
Train Variety - 10/10
Performance - 7/10 (9/10 Normally, but 5/10 at the SF Terminal and depot)

Overall - 9/10

Concluding comment - It is a beautiful route with good trains, but performance needs to be fixed at the SF depot and terminal.

Ever just want to sit back, relax and just play a calm casual game? That game should be American Truck Simulator (will be referred to as ATS). ATS is one of those games where you can just take a relaxing drive and with plenty of places you can visit in the dry arid terrain of California, Nevada and Arizona, there is a lot of places you can go to with scenery just waiting to be explored!