It's a business management game (similar to Truck Driver) where you transport passengers/goods across a vast network of railway within an incredibly tight time limit whilst avoiding various fines (speeding, no lights, killing Bambi etc etc) on your journey. The bigger your empire, the more money you have and the more money you have the further afield you can travel with better trains. The only comparison it has with TSW is the fact you drive trains...nothing more. Sadly though, it's pretty broken on XBox...
Weird. I bought the game and haven't experienced many issues or bugs. I find the title text display when pausing the game quite annoying though
How are the controls? Is it similar to TSW? I might buy it and give it a go. The gameplay looks interesting but I don’t expect the world to be as detailed like in TSW or have busy train traffic every few minutes.
You can configure the controls to be same as TSW yes. I’ve a short video on my channel where I do just that if you do decide to pick it up
It might be an XBox thing. Some of the gameplay affecting stuff: The tutorial asks you to do things that don't match the "this is how you do it" instructions. Rendering problems when using the zoom. Blurry cab dials. 9/10 times the GPS line guides you to the wrong passenger platform and you have to reverse back and try guess thee correct path. On multiple occasions the track in front of you fails to draw quick enough and your train just stops dead. If you choose a long haul freight contract the waypoint line sometimes only shows half the route and...... ....if this happens you cannot reassign/remove loaded wagons if you cancel that contract. The only positive is that I understand the devs are very aware of issues with the XBox version and there may be a patch or two imminent. In the meantime though I've put the game to one side for a while because whilst a certain amount of the game can be played without any major issues, it's just too much of a chore trying to work out what those parameters are.
You can, but the problem is: If you swap the sticks around to mirror the camera & zoom of TSW, internal cab commands also alter with the swap and you end up having to use the right stick (instead of left stick) whilst holding down 'A' to operate switches and levers. Ufff!
Ah yes I have experienced the issue of being directed to to the wrong track. Although I haven't had an issue of my train coming to a stop. I play on xbox series x.
https://gamerdvr.com/gamer/boris-the-frog/video/165014244 Just for you One thing I will say though is that Train Life runs on UE and there is no foliage appearing before your very eyes and no ridiculous shadow draw distances on the rails (or indeed anywhere) so it just goes to show that it can be done. Also, you have to give Simteract a great deal of credit for the scenery assets (which aren't just a messy hotch-potch of randomly placed items like in TSW), the overall quality & variety of the landscapes and the excellent day/night lighting. Sure, it might not work too well but the foundations are well and truly in place and if the bulk of issues can be resolved then Train Life could evolve into a truly great game. I've just spent an almost trouble-free (the above clip was from that journey) log haul from Paris to Berlin and then a return trip to Paris (via Amsterdam to drop off some cattle) to drop off more cattle....a really enjoyable 4 hours. Just a shame they aren't all like that.
I have to slightly backtrack on one or two bugs I mentioned because I was advised to reinstall the game to ensure all pre-launch fixes had been correctly applied and that seems to have improved things. Track rendering issues as well as the wrong platform thing are still a bit of a problem but I have actually discovered a really simple workaround for the latter, which not only works 100% of the time but also makes all aspects of career mode perfectly usable. https://gamerdvr.com/gamer/boris-the-frog/video/165116078 The problem was that if you select the 'boarding track' to correctly enter a station then the route out of the station disappeared from the GPS and it was a pain to make it stay highlighted once you'd finished boarding tasks. I found that doing the following removed all the problems: Note: This will only work if you've remapped the two conflicting settings on your controller 'A' button. 1: Determine your route on the planner as normal but tick the 'auto remove stations' option before applying it to the GPS. What that means is that as soon as your train stops, that location is completely removed from the the route planner and cannot be referred to again by the game. 2: Stop in the blue zone (the entry point) of the station and request access. 3: When it is granted select the 'boarding track' and this will correctly guide you to the platform. 4: Once boarding tasks are finished then (important) reselect 'no route set', open the map then route planner and reapply the remaining journey to your GPS. It will still display as no route selected but the GPS line will return to the minimap with *no* unusual detours displayed. I've actually found that (on the routes I've tried this on) the GPS remains correct from there onwards and there was no need to toggle between no route/boarding track again. Great if you're planning a multi-stop service. Sadly though, this doesn't work in the scenarios because they follow "do this" instructions so there is no route planner
Sorry for the necrobump, but I thought it better than to start a new thread. I have just started playing this, and while it is a nice change of pace, it would be helpful if the game explained how certain aspects of the game work. I have had to look up guides to get an idea.
