You run a railroad around different continents, and if you play your cards right the railroad gradually expands and grows, defeating the competitors and gaining supremacy in the continent you happen to be playing in.
As always, the graphics and music get a mention first. This game came out in 1993, but you wouldn't think it by looking at it (and no, it isn't because the graphics and music are so ahead of their time). They are the summit of absolute mediocrity, the graphics being extraordinarily ugly and the music representing something close to Pong.
The graphics are the standard (back then) 2D, but there is little detail, and no use of shading or use of any special graphical techniques. The music is even worse, using the internal sound card in the PC itself to make bleeping noises rather than speakers. I'm sure even in 1993 sound cards were a little more refined.
But this shouldn't act as a deterrent, for the game is sublime everywhere else i.e. the game-play. At first I must admit the game failed to hook me in, and first thoughts were ''What have I spent my money on?''. But as I played more and more, I was slowly being drawn in. Homework was secondary. Social life was non existent. Eating was of little relative
importance anymore, for I swore that by time the sun set, I would connect London to Manchester, such is the addictive nature of Railroad Tycoon.
The simplicity of the description of graphics and so on doesn’t do justice to what really is a quite complicated, yet rewarding game. Indeed, business acumen is welcome here! This is a challenge that knows no boundaries, not necessarily because of the computer AI. This game is naturally programmed to be very hard work.
The main 'hook' of the game is the arrangement of freight, and where you expand your railroad to. Each station that you put in on your railroad has two things associated with business - supply and demand i.e. the supply of freight the station gives, and the demand of goods that the station wants. Your job is to balance this out to an extent that satisfies the two. By doing this profits will surely follow.
