It could be a good game, but it is not a good game. The bad far outweighs the good. What little good there is (3D, reasonably modern graphics) is dwarfed by all the bad in the game (basically everything else). If the devs would actually work on the gameplay rather than disappear for weeks on end popping up with these tiny patches which really do very little on balance, this could be a great game. It could be an awesome game. There is just too much holding it back.
What makes up this game?
1. Economics – balance is completely off and as repeatedly shown it’s much easier to run this game as truck or tram fever than it is train fever.
2. cargo – useless and poorly thought out. Cities only accept one good which makes modding fairly pointless, all you can do is make some massive chain rather than multiple chains. the randomness of resources and factories only leads to the silliness. not to mention the entire situation of having these lone solitary factories in the middle of nowhere.
3. passengers – The multiple bugs surrounding these just make them a chore as well.
4. Roads – inexplicable “collisions” when you try to upgrade, lack of signals, inability to lay road or upgrade over rails.
5. tracks – inexplicable “collisions” when trying to twin tracks, or the 9000 bridge pillars you need to make a bridge go about 200 meters. no X intersections, no double fork, no 90 degree intersection.
6. The absolute cluster mess that is upgrading any roads or track. Not only do vehicles teleport for miles around, but any passengers or cargo are also disappeared. Time to upgrade electric on that station? you just lost 100 passengers.
7. Speaking of upgrading stations, how about actually upgrading stations? Delete a station try to put another in its place? 9 times out of 10 it fails for “collisions”. Even if you try to put back in the exact same station you just deleted.
8. back to cities: How about city growth? A random jumble of a mess. Zero planning, the only planning by you costs you money and upkeep despite all those houses using it. Makes no sense. If I’m going to build roads and people are going to build on them, I expect some kind of income from that, property tax, something.
I could keep going, but please, tell us what this games gets so right that it is, on balance, a good game?