Transport Fever Review

Transport Fever is a simulation game that is about travelling; the aim of the game is to build a sustainable town/city (depending on which part of the campaign you are in) and there are options as to whether you will do this job in America or Europe. It is similar to the Train Simulator games where you have to build rail tracks and design travel routes but there is more which includes roads and you can even build bus terminals.

In the beginning the player has the selection of the tutorial or campaign; the tutorial starts off with teaching you how to build roads and train tracks which follows into building a bus depot where you will be given the chance to learn how bus routes can be created which involves building multiple bus stops then attaching them using a line tool. After the tutorial is over you can play the campaign where you are given the option between American and Europe; when you select one you will be given campaign scenarios where you will have to complete various tasks in order to gain in-game currency and medals. The player does not have to follow the narrative of the tutorial nor campaign due to the lack of restriction so if the player wanted to they could just build what they want; in my case I spent all of my in-game currency on building mountains just to see what happens and when the player runs out of the base amount of money they can loan money but loans can only occur twice in the game.

There are a number of features in the game which I cannot be entirely sure on whether they are unique or not; the ability to truly customise travel where you can change the routes, add traffic signals and be prepared for traffic warnings. Terrain control is a useful feature because of the aesthetics; maybe the player wants to build a tunnel and hide it within a mountain to give that authentic look that can be found around the world.

The graphics are really good for the type of game it is and when you the player zooms in they will be able to see the various people walking around and the cars/buses/trucks driving around. The loaning system is something I have never come across in a game before and it is incredibly useful; when I tapped into the loan it was because I spent the 4,000,000 budget I was given then a dialogue popped up to let me know I can get a loan which I wasted, I received another loan then there was nothing after that.

Overall, I like Transport Fever; the good parts are the amount of customisation that can be done, the tasks are understandable so there is little room for error when attempting to complete them, the level of detail is surprisingly good compared to my expectation, the loaning system is great because it can help the player out of a tough spot and the tutorial is incredible because it goes into so much detail when explaining what you need to do as well as how you can perform certain actions.

The downsides are probably more to do with unimportant things that are found in games such as bugs which these can just be ignored anyway as long as the player can still enjoy the game they are playing. If I was to improve Transport Fever, I would just add a few more tasks to each part of the campaign just to add more difficulty to the game and make sure there is more variety to the tasks to avoid repetition.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary PC code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.