[h1]An underrated gem from the creator of RollerCoaster Tycoon, and now it's time to give it some love.[/h1]
Chris Sawyer's Locomotion is a game from the eponymous creator of RollerCoaster Tycoon 1 and 2, and spiritual successor to Transport Tycoon. While those three games are regarded as legendary PC games for the system, this game ended up being very underrated and overlooked at launch because it simply came out too late for its own good. Despite being 5 years younger than it, the game aesthetically looks the same as RCT1. This may sound like an absurd criticism in this day and age where games with pixel-art graphics are everywhere, but back in 2004, not having the latest and greatest graphics was seen as a shortcoming of the game developer rather than a design choice to complement the game's natural feel. Add to the fact that OpenTTD had launched earlier that year and is literally free, and Chris Sawyer's Locomotion ended up being left out in favor of better looking PC games.
In the years since, Chris Sawyer's Locomotion has undergone a bit of a renaissance as people are generally now more looking to look at the game's positive aspects. The OpenRCT2 team is also working on OpenLoco, which as the name would suggest, is to Chris Sawyer's Locomotion what OpenRCT2 is to RollerCoaster Tycoon 2. I'm glad to see that the game is slowly getting the love that it deserves, and if you're a fan of either OpenTTD, RCT1, or RCT2, then it's time to give this game an honest chance. Since OpenLoco is also in development, it'll only get better as time goes on.
[b]NOTE:[/b] Just like RCT1 and RCT2, the game does sometimes crash if you play it on Steam. I experienced a fair amount of crashing with the default game resolution, but as soon as I bumped it up to the middle resolution, I was able to play through the entire rest of the game without a single crash. Additionally, if you plan on playing OpenLoco, this will be a non-issue entirely.
As a successor to Transport Tycoon, Chris Sawyer's Locomotion plays a lot like OpenTTD. In fact, there's a lot of quality of life improvements to this game that OpenTTD still doesn't have to this day including the fact that you can build stations underground, you can create bridges with turns in them, and you can actually rotate the camera (hallelujah)! Building underground is also easier because you're no longer constrained to a flat, straight line of track like you are in OpenTTD - If you found building a transporting network to be enjoyable in OpenTTD, you'll find it just as fun to build it in Chris Sawyer's Locomotion as well.
This game is also easier to pick up and learn than OpenTTD due to the fact that it has a proper tutorial and beginner-level scenarios to help you figure out the game rather than OpenTTD which throws you to the wolves and tells you to figure it out. Given that the game is 10 years younger than its sibling game, the UI is also cleaner and it's more obvious what certain buttons do. This game even has a tram system, which OpenTTD doesn't. All of the same things we loved about Chris Sawyer's previous games are also here. This game has a better main menu theme than either RCT1 or RCT2 - Yeah, I said it. Fight me.
In spite of this, it's impossible to ignore its shortcomings to OpenTTD. Unlike OpenTTD, there is no random map generator (there is a scenario editor, though you don't have that much control over what map the game generates in it), sandbox options, or a way to play with the AI disabled. This means that OpenTTD has a considerable edge over this game in terms of being "turn your brain off" games as you'll always need to have some focus on this game at all times. Additionally, the Performance Index system heavily encourages you to only use trains and ignore every other transport type entirely, because it's based on the total number of cargo you deliver relative to the distance it traveled to reach there.
Chris Sawyer's Locomotion is a good game, and it's worthy of accompanying the other games in Sawyer's repertoire of iconic tycoon games. It came out too late for its own good, but OpenLoco is starting to give it the attention it deserved from the beginning, and it's always very cheap to buy. If you're a fan of either OpenTTD, or the first two RCT games, you should give this one a go. If nothing else, then just for the curiosity of this game that doesn't get that much attention, but you will find a lot to love about it like Sawyer's other games. Of course, downloading OpenLoco is also a good idea as well.
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