A few years in the past I interviewed one of many growth crew behind the Prepare Sim World franchise for TheXboxHub Official Podcast. My last query was a foolish one by which I requested if it will be attainable – sooner or later – to drive any prepare on any route throughout the UK and even the world. He laughed, earlier than humouring me by saying he wished it might occur.
However unusually with every yearly iteration of Prepare Sim World, and the DLC that’s slowly added, that dream is turning into extra of a actuality. Not solely do you get to drive trendy trains the world over, however you too can drive the outdated steam ones as effectively.
And that’s the case in Prepare Sim World 4. Let’s go trainspotting. Once more…
The excellent news about Prepare Sim World 4 is that any content material you could have collected from the earlier video games will be downloaded as free DLC. That’s a plus. However if you’re new to the entire prepare driving expertise your finest wager is to begin within the coaching centre. With out out, you’ll be left stumped going ahead. Right here you wander round in first particular person, in a type of company constructing the place goals go to die. However what it does do is provide you with an in depth instruction handbook on how every prepare drives and operates. It’s going to appear overwhelming at first however Prepare Sim World – as a complete – is extraordinarily good at holding your hand and serving to you thru issues.
After the coaching course, just a few choices begin to open up your prepare life. You’ll be able to select a route – from a fully shed-load of them – and go from one place to a different, selecting up passengers and arriving on time. You too can soak up situations; one thing which is up there as a part of my favorite moments of Prepare Sim World; the closest you’ll doubtless get to a marketing campaign and story mode. This mode offers a very good perception into all of the tracks and trains on supply. There’s additionally a free mode which lets you drive any prepare, on any observe, in any location.
The brand new stuff on supply in Prepare Sim World 4 is fairly thrilling too. There’s the Antelope Valley line which fits throughout the borders of Los Angeles, taking you thru the countryside, mountainsides, and deserts. Retaining on the mountain theme the subsequent observe whisks you off to Austria for the S- Bahn Vorarlberg. Lastly, however under no circumstances least, and we head again to Blighty with the East Coast Mainline, working from Peterborough to Doncaster with over 80 miles of observe. New trains and new tracks will definitely preserve the prepare particular person very completely satisfied.
There’s additionally the possibility to design liveries and situations, earlier than sharing them on-line. It’s a mode that I stare at for minutes and hours, hoping that my creativeness will enable the creation of one thing great. It normally fails me, however for a lot of, this might be a massively entertaining ingredient of Prepare Sim World. Nevertheless you sort out this recreation although, there are – fairly actually – a whole lot and a whole lot of hours of gameplay on supply right here, particularly if you go together with all of the DLC you’ll be able to obtain. However does that imply we’d like a brand new recreation yearly? I’m not so certain. I don’t know in case you might say the identical factor a couple of FIFA or COD.
Visually, Prepare Sim World 4 provides some extra good lighting results and the sport feels smoother than it’s ever been. In actual fact, at occasions, switching the digicam angles between inside and exterior feels seamless. There’s little doubt that the crew behind it know their trains, with each one in all them painstakingly recreated. It’s most likely this which suggests Prepare Sim World 4 might be seen as the right recreation to permit railway followers to stay out their wildest goals, moving into the driving seat as they go. It helps that the menus are very clear and nothing appears cluttered too.
The sound design is as wonderful as regular; as soon as once more with a excessive stage of element on how every engine sounds or the opening of a door or a sure prepare. There’s some upbeat instrumental music in between issues too, while a very good vary of voice-over actors present helpful tips about the best way to start every space.
There’s little doubt that Prepare Sim World 4 is yet one more robust entry within the Prepare Sim World sequence. A recreation that’s able to providing up a whole lot of hours of gameplay, the one actual query is whether or not or not we actually want a brand new iteration already. However for followers of the railways, the lure of latest tracks and trains will all the time be a draw, as will some visible enhancements.
