MaSzyna

giga chad

erpe jeden

MaSzyna is a train simulator that takes the actual driving side of railways much more seriously than I expected. I am not playing through a career with flashy objectives or a big story. I am sitting in the cab of a train and actually having to learn how the locomotive works, follow railway signals and control the train properly. The game focuses on Polish railway vehicles and routes, and it has been developed for a very long time, which is pretty obvious from some parts of the presentation. At the same time, the amount of detail underneath it is what makes it interesting to me. The biggest strength for me is the actual simulation. The braking and traction systems are properly modelled, and the game puts a lot of attention into realistic railway signalling. I can drive electric and diesel locomotives, multiple units and different types of passenger and freight trains. There are also a lot of different liveries and rolling stock, so I am not stuck driving one vehicle for the entire experience. I especially like that freight trains can feel completely different from faster passenger services because the weight of the train changes how carefully I have to manage everything. There is also a ridiculous amount of content for something that costs nothing. The simulator has around 15 routes and almost 200 scenarios, with both fictional routes and accurately recreated railway lines. Some scenarios also use random events, so I am not always dealing with exactly the same situation. I can drive an express service, a regional train or a heavy freight train, and the game gives me plenty of different situations to learn. That makes it much easier for me to keep finding something new once I understand the basics. The downside is that MaSzyna really does expect me to put the effort in. I cannot just jump into a locomotive and immediately understand every control. The simulator recommends learning the Polish railway rules and reading the manual for individual vehicles before attempting the more complicated scenarios. I actually respect that approach because the realism would mean very little if everything was simplified, but it does make the first few hours harder than they need to be. There is a learning curve here, and I have to be willing to deal with it rather than expecting the game to explain everything in a casual way. The visuals are probably where I notice the age of the project the most. Some scenery can look fairly basic and the overall presentation does not have the polish I would expect from a modern commercial train simulator. I can also see that the developers are still improving the engine, vehicles, scenery and other parts of the simulator through ongoing updates. That is a positive because the project is clearly still being worked on, but it also means MaSzyna can sometimes feel more like a long running simulation project than a finished modern game. What saves it for me is that the important parts are the ones that actually work. The sound recordings come from real locomotive cabs and stations, the vehicle models use detailed photographic textures and the physics are clearly treated as a major part of the experience. I would rather have a simulator with slightly rough scenery and convincing train behaviour than something that looks amazing but turns driving a train into a simple point and click exercise. The level editor is also a nice extra because it gives me another way to interact with the simulator beyond simply running the included scenarios. Overall, MaSzyna is a very serious train simulator with a huge amount of content and an impressive level of mechanical detail. I like the variety of locomotives, the realistic braking and traction, the signalling, the different types of services and the sheer number of scenarios. The old looking presentation and steep learning curve definitely make it less approachable, and I would not recommend it to myself when I want something relaxing that I can understand immediately. But when I want a proper simulation where learning how to operate the train is part of the experience, MaSzyna gives me a lot for free. It is rough around the edges, but there is a lot of substance underneath them. Rating: 8.1/10