Parkan Iron Strategy

Parkan Iron Strategy Designer's follow-up to Railroad Tycoon II has been put out to pasture. In that game, you'll build up your railroad empire from the ground up. You'll need to research new technologies, build the best businesses, and make money to keep it running smoothly. But the path to success will be a grueling one. In a PC strategy game, that means you'll have to construct and improve an enviable infrastructure with some research and budget in place. But most of the focus will be on the specific situations and economic activities you're going to be in, rather than any of the design decisions you make on the screen.

Make no mistake: The real-time strategy experience is going to be a long way from the one found in Railroad Tycoon II. The play control engine is somewhat of an under-the-radar solution to the entire point of strategy games, with only limited control over your own empire. The majority of the gameplay is driven by keeping your empire in the habit of fighting off rival opponents. Your overall goal in Railroad Tycoon II is to build up a growing empire and expand it from a lowly trader to a democratic democracy. The world of Railroad Tycoon II is much like the real world, where you're able to recruit and play as numerous smaller cities and churn out small armies. Of course, you can do that either in real time or in real time, because the game has a unique resource management system that allows you to establish more colonies within a turn and upgrade your own.

The visuals in Railroad Tycoon II are all impressive, thanks to the developer's use of "accelerated graphics" (most computer games are based on floating camera cards) and the incorporation of a lighting system that can be manually set to maximum level. All the computer-controlled cities in the game look very impressive and are especially impressive when you see them in action. Everything from the ants to large-scale gunships makes the game a technical achievement. The game even has realistic animations and is extremely easy to play. Railroad Tycoon II's graphics engine is also impressive--the game has features such as "mindbleed map" so you can see and control your own production from any location without having to expend a ton of time at a time. It's a testament to the game's technological capabilities that it even lets you access the fastest, most expensive cities in the game.

Railroad Tycoon II has many impressive features that give it an extraordinary degree of polish and appeal to people of all ages.

The single-player game is filled with many different types of rides and scenery that should appeal to a wide range of people. You can also find out how well you got on a map. You can drive buses, ATVs, SUVs, and even train tracks. Railroad Tycoon II lets you discover and build your own rail system. You can take advantage of the computer's suggestions to help create the new rail system, a feature that has improved considerably over the first game. For example, the game features very fast trains. Your build will also let you save at the station you were building and select it based on your preferred route. Of course, the controls are very well done, and you'll be able to create your own railroad system for use with just the keyboard. The game lets you send trains to different cities, and you can use the heads-up display to set up the number of trains and trains. For example, you can send a train to a city that is clearly visible on your map and then use the zoom feature to place a bulldozer over it. The game even includes a passenger-management option. There are also different types of transport. The bus has a smooth flow to it and it is powered by an engine. In one scenario, the train has a stable route leading to a parallel town. In another scenario, it can pass on several trains over it, and you have to pass a time to pass another train. This is done in two different types of missions.

The game offers several different cities to take on. Some are urban, others are fancy, and some are modern. For instance, you can take a small piece of land and transport it to a mountain. In other cases, you can just walk around the city. You can also take a few roads from your old town into the new one. You can also transport trains from your old town into a city, and you can do this anywhere. You can also take up to a city park, and you can see the surroundings of the city in real time. The game offers a good balance of real-time and turn-based action.

GS: It's been mentioned before that the game has an advanced lighting engine, but the company is trying to differentiate it so that it looks more like a game. Tell us about that. What is the game's graphics engine?

JW: The engine has a variety of effects that vary in color and detail.