A Review: 3D Ultra Lionel Traintown Deluxe, PC 2000
Hello again and welcome.
This is a review for the the game 3D Ultra Lionel Traintown Deluxe, a PC game aimed at children from 2000.
3D Ultra Lionel Traintown Deluxe is a toy train set puzzle game developed by Dynamix and published by Sierra Attractions for the PC in 2000. I found this game after looking for something that was similar to the old Railroad Tycoon titles on the Amiga and early Windows PCs. It was not at all what I was expecting and is basically set up as a giant train set, with a variety of tasks and puzzles to complete with varying amounts of difficulty. Ranging from easy ten-minute missions through to some seriously hard ones come the late game, that could take up to an hour or more to complete. From what I could find, 3D Ultra Lionel Traintown Deluxe did pretty well among the educational gaming community, managing to win the Computer Family Entertainment Title of the Year award from the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences at the 3rd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards in October 2000. Though I can't find much more information about this game, I know that it did lead to further Lionel Train set games being developed, the most notable of which was a Nintendo DS game, Lionel Trains: On Track, that was released in mid-March 2007.
I liked this game as its pacing was completely down to the player for the most part, and it was a nice break from the more hectic games that I had been playing around the time. The easy controls and fun puzzles were a chilled and much more relaxing way for me to spend my hours gaming. The play was rewarding, and the voice acting was a nice touch, with some family-friendly PG-style humor laced in. I would have preferred some different trains to have been featured, but I'll take what I get. The controls were simple, and the ample tutorial missions helped a lot with getting the player into this game. I would have liked a checkpoint feature of some type, as I found that failing a mission at the half-hour point or right near the end was very frustrating. I also thought that the solution to some of the puzzles wasn't quite as simple as the mission description made them seem, with more than one stage requiring me to find a guide to complete them. Though for the majority of play, I enjoyed this game and can't really find much to complain about.
For a game of its age, 3D Ultra Lionel Traintown Deluxe was fairly pretty to look at, with some good-quality animations and models, along with fully 3D graphics for the trains and their carriages. The worlds were rich and very vibrantly coloured, to appeal to younger players, I suspect, but weren't overly aggressive on the eyes. Features and mechanics were clean, and I never experienced any lags or crashes that weren't the result of my own shenanigans.
Overall, I liked this game and found that the puzzle difficulty scaled well. I never felt that things had 'jumped' at all from mission to mission, and I liked that it was a game that could be easily enjoyed by all ages.
6/10 – Good Fun!
Signed Off – Leonardo – PSJ
This is a review for the the game 3D Ultra Lionel Traintown Deluxe, a PC game aimed at children from 2000.
3D Ultra Lionel Traintown Deluxe is a toy train set puzzle game developed by Dynamix and published by Sierra Attractions for the PC in 2000. I found this game after looking for something that was similar to the old Railroad Tycoon titles on the Amiga and early Windows PCs. It was not at all what I was expecting and is basically set up as a giant train set, with a variety of tasks and puzzles to complete with varying amounts of difficulty. Ranging from easy ten-minute missions through to some seriously hard ones come the late game, that could take up to an hour or more to complete. From what I could find, 3D Ultra Lionel Traintown Deluxe did pretty well among the educational gaming community, managing to win the Computer Family Entertainment Title of the Year award from the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences at the 3rd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards in October 2000. Though I can't find much more information about this game, I know that it did lead to further Lionel Train set games being developed, the most notable of which was a Nintendo DS game, Lionel Trains: On Track, that was released in mid-March 2007.
I liked this game as its pacing was completely down to the player for the most part, and it was a nice break from the more hectic games that I had been playing around the time. The easy controls and fun puzzles were a chilled and much more relaxing way for me to spend my hours gaming. The play was rewarding, and the voice acting was a nice touch, with some family-friendly PG-style humor laced in. I would have preferred some different trains to have been featured, but I'll take what I get. The controls were simple, and the ample tutorial missions helped a lot with getting the player into this game. I would have liked a checkpoint feature of some type, as I found that failing a mission at the half-hour point or right near the end was very frustrating. I also thought that the solution to some of the puzzles wasn't quite as simple as the mission description made them seem, with more than one stage requiring me to find a guide to complete them. Though for the majority of play, I enjoyed this game and can't really find much to complain about.
For a game of its age, 3D Ultra Lionel Traintown Deluxe was fairly pretty to look at, with some good-quality animations and models, along with fully 3D graphics for the trains and their carriages. The worlds were rich and very vibrantly coloured, to appeal to younger players, I suspect, but weren't overly aggressive on the eyes. Features and mechanics were clean, and I never experienced any lags or crashes that weren't the result of my own shenanigans.
Overall, I liked this game and found that the puzzle difficulty scaled well. I never felt that things had 'jumped' at all from mission to mission, and I liked that it was a game that could be easily enjoyed by all ages.
6/10 – Good Fun!
Signed Off – Leonardo – PSJ
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