RAILROAD TYCOON

 If you've ever enjoyed playing with model trains, MicroProse has a game for
you! Of course, describing RAILROAD TYCOON as a "railroad simulation" doesn't
really tell the whole story. It's a fascinating but complex game of railroading,
empire building, and financial management: Here's your chance to find out what
it'd be like to own your own railroad. (This review is based on the IBM-PC
version.)

 In RAILROAD TYCOON, you play the part of railroad founder and president. You
pick your starting point; lay track; build stations, depots, and signal towers;
sell bonds and stock to finance expansion; and keep one eye firmly fixed on the
competition. It all adds up to an addicting game that's sure to keep you playing
into the wee hours of many mornings.

 When you load the program, RAILROAD TYCOON asks you to identify the type of
monitor, sound, and interface you desire. (Because these selections usually
remain the same for every game, it's somewhat irritating to have to enter the
identical information every time you run the program.) Following a very nice
title screen and credits, you identify the type of game you want to play. You
then have your choice of several options: new or saved game, region and time
frame, and difficulty level. The game then asks you to identify a train in the
manual (this is the copy protection). Failure to chose the right train limits
you to two trains per game.

 It takes a while to become accustomed to the copy-protection screen. The
engines look fairly similar, so you spend a lot of time looking at details to
identify the trains. Once you know what to look for, selecting the right train
is simple. In any case, this off-disk copy protection is much preferred to the
key-disk based systems that have appeared on earlier MicroProse products.

 Next, the computer builds your world. While cities, rivers, and other
geological features are in their "historical" places, the resources of the
regions are randomized so that each game presents a unique challenge. The
locations of coal mines, lumber mills, stockyards, and other resources and
industries are crucial to the ultimate success of your railroad.

 Once into the actual game, you have access to pull-down menus via either the
mouse or keyboard. These provide access to numerous reports on your railroad's
operation and financial health, including one fascinating report that depicts
the growth of the railroads using a time-lapse method. They also control more
mundane actions, such as saving a game or "retiring" from your railroad.

 Most important are the maps that allow you to look at the world in which your
railroad operates. There are four different map displays, each indicating
varying levels of detail -- ranging from an overall display of the entire map,
to a detailed display of a small portion of the playing area. Each of these
displays has its own purpose in the game: The larger displays are needed for
long-term planning (spotting resources and centers of population), while the
more detailed displays are used for building track and observing railroad
operations.

 In a normal game, the first thing to do is locate a good starting point for
your railroad. Large cities are usually best for this purpose, because they
provide an instant resource for mail, passengers, and other cargo your railroad
will haul. Of course, you must have someplace to haul this stuff to, so another
population center should be close by.

 Once you have located such an area, you'll need to build your first station or
terminal. This will act as a starting point for your track. Then, you'll have to
build track to connect the two points of your line together, building another
station or terminal at the other end of the line. Now that the two cities are
connected, you can build a train and start a run!

 When you have an operational train, you must give it a route to run, and
instructions on what to pick up and deliver at each point along the line. The
game provides a very handy screen for this: It lists all the information about
the train (engine type, route, maintenance costs, speed, destination, and
location, to name a few), and as such is a crucial feature that players will
invoke all the time. After you select a route and add the appropriate cars, the
train leaves the station and heads for its first stop. Each operational train
has its own icon on the train report, appearing on the left side of the screen.
You can select each train for individual attention by simply clicking on that
area.

 A word here about sound and graphics: This is a game that you'll want to show
your friends. The animation sequence in which the train pulls out of the engine
house and chugs onto the track is wonderful. The game is full of these little
animated clips to keep you entertained. The sound effects are also very strong.
If you have a sound board (AdLib and Roland MT-32 are supported), the game is a
real treat. Not only will you hear excellent music, but the trains make noise as
they pull out of station, and bells ring to indicate the arrival and delivery of
a cargo to its destination. When you consider that the game lets you have more
than 30 trains operating at one time, a mature game sounds very much like a
pinball machine!

 RAILROAD TYCOON's user interface is very good, but it has its inconsistencies.
For instance, you can use the mouse on almost every screen of the game, but on
several screens, there's no mouse support at all: For instance, the
copy-protection screen uses only the arrow keys for selection. There are several
other inconsistent spots like this that detract from the overall ease of use.

 Some other features were missing, particularly an UNDO command that would allow
you to back up from your last action. It would also be nice to be able to print
some of the financial information from the game. The train income report would
be much easier to use, for example: It can be hard to keep track of all those
trains!

 There are four levels of play: Investor, Financier, Mogul, and Tycoon. Investor
is the easiest, where you'll find plenty of raw material and finished goods,
along with quick city growth; Tycoon is the hardest, where you'll need to work
for nearly every penny of profit.

 You can also toggle between various modes of the game: Dispatcher Operations/No
Collision mode determines how many trains can be on a block of track at a time.
With No Collision selected, RAILROAD TYCOON will create sidings wherever two
trains would collide. In Dispatcher Operations, you'll need to watch out for
that yourself, and collisions are possible (although not without your
interference in the train operations).

 Basic/Complex Economy determines which cities want which goods. In Basic
Economy, all cities want all goods, and it's just a matter of finding the
materials to ship; in Complex Economy, demand will be created according to the
type(s) of industry (factories, textile mills, etc.) in the city.

 Lastly, the computer players can either ignore you (Friendly Competition), or
attack you by buying your stock and initiating rate wars in your cities
(Cutthroat Competition). In either mode, you can always buy another computer
player's stock and start rate wars with him.

 RAILROAD TYCOON runs in 512K of RAM, but 640K is required if you want to
display 256-color VGA graphics. The game requires a color monitor (CGA or
better) and a mouse is _highly_ recommended. It can be played from floppy disks,
but the game requires a number of disk accesses, so it will be slow; installing
the game on your hard drive is preferred.

 The package includes several laminated, full-color reference cards, a technical
supplement for the machine-specific instructions (such as installation), and a
manual of over 150 pages.

 The manual contains a vast amount of historical and technical information that
isn't essential for gameplay, but it enhances your enjoyment of the product. It
includes an excellent tutorial for the first-time player. The documentation is
complete and the background information is entertaining, but the sheer bulk of
the documentation can be a bit overwhelming. Sometimes it's hard to put your
finger on that one piece of information you need while playing the game.

 RAILROAD TYCOON is a wonderful program, one of the most entertaining I've
encountered in almost ten years of computer gaming. Naturally, I can't even
begin to explain all its aspects. This kind of simulation -- in which you bring
objects to life and watch them operate from a distance -- is particularly
interesting (POPULOUS and SIMCITY are other fine examples). RAILROAD TYCOON
combines the allure of fascinating subject matter (railroading) with intense
competition from computer players. These factors make for an excellent product
that will entice and entertain a variety of gamers.

 RAILROAD TYCOON is published and distributed by MicroProse.

*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253