Seeing as I have been very vocal about these releases I thought I would give my honest opinion on this release. Having gamepads in this instance has proved useful. From the outset, it's not a tragedy by any means, but it's also not stellar. I think more than anything my review will demonstrate why these yearly releases won't work going forward. I have this on XboxSX and PC but have yet to pick it up for PC. First up the good... So no doubt some on here see me as the grinch, but the truth is I do enjoy TSW, and have at least 90% of the content over the years. In this release I've definitely noticed some improvements, and I don't believe it to be placebo. First up the new routes. Id be lying if I said I wasn't impressed with San Bernardino. It is a complete step up from last years offering. There's lots more detail on the route, it has an interesting track dynamic. The new unit is a welcome addition and there's a nice bit of variety here. There's a few issues that bring it down though that I need to report as bugs namely cars levitating a few feet off the ground at crossings, some sunken assets, the odd floating building. But a solid route none the less. Next up the Frankfurt route which is utterly phenomenal - Its dripping with detail, has a variety of services to play, varied and interesting track layouts. It's just well put together and very polished. The only slight downside its a bit heavy even on xbox. Maybe it will disappear when I run it a few times but having not all the layers may prove decisive. Other routes - track shadows. A much improved offering, it does make a great difference to the immersion and its nicely done on the tracks it supports WITH CAVEATS, which I will go into in a bit. I also noticed that older routes and some of the routes with added track shadows seemed to be cleaned up. East Coastway for example, for some reason and im sure im not imaging it feels like its got more detail than I remember, more foliage and a few other extras - I don't remember there being any sheep in it for example, but they are there. Also seeing an improvement is the loading times. It's a big step up from tsw4. Yes I don't have every dlc installed (we will get to that) but I have a fair few and it's good. The game also loads in faster and I do feel most of the routes are smoother. So, some really good stuff there. Haven't played around with other features like layers, guard mode or creation club yet so will reserve comment on those. Right..the bad. So with any release there's bugs, but I've seen quite a few here plus WCML is pretty shoddy as a route. Firstly WCML...the easiest thing to say here is it just lacks care. There's some nice bits on the run, but it just feels a bit unfinished and not up to par of the other two routes which is a shame. I couldn't try the Goblin assets because I didn't have it installed but the timetable as been discussed to death is lacking for such a busy route. The roll into Euston was ok but again my memories of that in real life is that its quite stark and grotty and there's not enough grime and clutter as you pass through what's essentially a built up area of London. The lack of branding also hurts the route because of the inconsistency of having London Overground and no mainline branding. With some love it could be an epic route but it feels way off to me. So along with that ive tested various routes to see if they are bug free, Rosenheim had issues at Salzburg where my windows on the left of the train were frosted and glitching (I will post photos and clips). Ive had floating cars on San Bernadino at crossings, on the highway and in general. Ive had sunken cars in car parks. There's a few houses that are levitating along the track. Car shadows are STILL an issue, they only appear when close to the train which gives them the impression that they are flat sometimes and on a route where the track is dynamically weaving alongside roads and highways its highly noticeable. Cars, traffic and shadows must be fixed moving forward. I also noticed some spawning of traffic on a level crossing not far out of san Bernardino, the traffic actually continues to spawn on the crossing. I have some major bugs with the camera - using the external camera when stopped at a station causes it to zoom in and out inside the passengers coaches without me doing anything on the controller, it seems to go crazy. Again I'll post some clips. Ok the ugly. Shadows, shadows, shadows. Its great that we have the track shadows fixed although I was initially confused because when I fired up revisited routes like Dresden and Rosenheim I have this black box track shadow that I can only assume is the ballast? In fact on Dresden and Rosenheim and on Voralberg I had two - a square darker shadow at the front and a second extended lighter block shadow ahead of it which looks hideous. This definitely needs addressing otherwise your track shadows are in vain. What I don't understand though is because routes like London Commuter and East Coastway are not remastered, their shadows and tracks seem much better and dare I say it the lighting feels more realistic. There's definitely an issue with lighting. DLC! So last year we couldn't load all of our DLC into TSW4 from the off and the same thing happened this year. Stuff I literally bought last week is not accessible. I think at least 40% of my content is still not accessible including Munchen, Maintelbahn, Niddelbhan, M3 and lots of other locos. Whilst some of this is on Microsoft - I mean cmon, you know it's releasing in September so you should be prepared up front. As of now there's still no word on when the rest is coming. Which leads me onto my final issue, maintaining this model. It's going to be unsustainable moving forward. Imagine if we have a TSW6 and 7. What's it going to be like moving that DLC by 7? Im fortunate enough to won extended storage on xbox which is mega expensive but TSW is taking up a hell of a lot of space and waiting for all of that to transfer is crazy long. You have to get your thinking caps on DTG otherwise it's going to get messy. It might be easier to just update the core game and slap a new graphic on it instead of a standalone release. Anyway it's a mixed bag with some great things, some ok things, some bad things and some rough things. If you have gamepads give it a try if not maybe hang fire until the DLC is fixed and there's a few patches rolled out. Here's my captures and video of some of the bugs for DTG. Mad camera Block shadows on track and mountain pop in Weird block shadows on a supposedly fixed route Weird glass frosting and block shadows
I'm one of the people who think you're a grinch ;-) but that's a fair review. Thank you for spending the time on it.
Ive got sheep and cows in East Coastway- TSW3. The ballast track shadows are probably the single biggest reason (closely followed by cars floating) why I will not be purchasing anything in TSW5 either. Its things like this which have kept me on a heavily tweaked TSW3. Im not missing out. I enjoy Simrail, Derail Valley and know the East Coastway like the back of my hand. Until I see a good product free from stupid issues, Im not buying (except for London- Brighton and West Cornwall, both on sale from TSW3 or before). I dont see you as negative. You call stuff out. Thats needed. Btw this is my review from 2019. Its interesting to see how many of the issues listed have (or have not) been addressed. I see it as educational..
One thing is for sure, it’s going to get harder for DTG to ever justify not offering a free upgrade in the future. Advances were so minimal this time.
I dont think so. San Bernadino comes with the new unit and already has Antelope valleys units. the rest of the layers are made from Cajon pass and sherman hill i think for freight.
