So I have been playing this one over Christmas. Thoughts. A little bit of fun, but its missing so much. As others have said its a rollercoaster, trying to maintain speed whilst going up and down the steep in/declines is fun at first, but by the time you have got the hang of it, you are breaking hard to come into the stations. So it all comes down to my initial bugbear thoughts. Its all very well riding these highspeed trains, but where do we go afterwards? I do think if DGT are going to continue with the highspeed idea for the next 12 months or so, great, but give us a tickle of a connection with a branchline or something like that. They go to great pains to tell us how much fun it is just to enjoy riding their trains, well give us the riding environment. Arrive on another train, run across the platform to catch the next one? So my view is driving the French route is fun for a bit, but ultimately once you have got the hang of changing the voltage, the fun soon stops as compared to other routes, its a one trick pony, with only one pony to ride! D
Thanks for the impressions. This is a route that I have not acquired because I imagined it would be as you explain, that it would become boring because it has no variety. In the future, with a big discount, it could be a possible purchase.
Its not boring, that is the wrong phrase, as its quite good fun playing on the 3.5% hills! The advance speed warning things on the dash is interesting too, I am sure on one of the Senarios it is broken, but hey the game is playable. But it takes half an hour to get along the line, and then, well you come back along the same line in the same but different train. TVL is still the best for variation in my mind, as there are so many routes and trains that you can take. Its just my bugbear that there is no adventure in the route. D
I don't agree with this fully, although I don't know if I understand it properly. "As others have said its a rollercoaster, trying to maintain speed whilst going up and down the steep in/declines is fun at first, but by the time you have got the hang of it, you are breaking hard to come into the stations." You don't have to brake hard into the stations, if you have then you pay too much attention to the speed limits. It's much easier if you put the train into speed selection mode and only apply some brakes if the train is on a slope and can't maintain the limit. Also, if you follow the TVM signals they ease you into the stations, slowing you down gradually so you don't have to brake at the last moment. "Arrive on another train, run across the platform to catch the next one?" You can do this in Timetable mode actually. When you finish a service just return to free roam and you can go and catch another one. Of course the timetable is as it is, I guess it reflects the real one so the developers can't make it so that you barely catch one train after the other. However, if you look at even the passenger boards you can make out when the next one arrives. I did this once, finished at Avignon then walked to the other platform, waited for the next train to arrive and drove it back to Marseille. I agree that this route is not as varied as others but there's only so much the developers can do about it. This route is only used by this train and the timetable is fixed as well. Maybe dynamic weather or some random events could make it more varied but I doubt they happen often in real life on this route. Lengthy high speed train routes are like this. You just go and go fast. That said, you could say the same for Flight Simulator as well. You watch the auto-pilot fly for hours above the clouds. This is the drawback of simulators, they can be monotous for some. I personally don't mind, I find the TGV route very relaxing, and it still takes some learning and practice to drive it well.
