TML Studios and WOW seem on the face of it to have give Railsimmers one of the key things they have been crying out for over the last few years.. A Simulator that takes advantage of current GPU, CPU processing power. However under the bonnet its a bit of a different story.
The view from the cab looking out into the smooth tunnels makes for a stunning immersive feel
When your in the tunnels the use of light rendering technology and a modern 3d graphics engine make for a superb immersive feeling.. Its silky smooth with superb frame rates even at full settings and high resolutions. However it soon becomes apparant that this silky smoothness is being marred by one of the worst physics engines ever to be placed inside a simulator. The train has absolutely no real weight in this artificial world, and simply moves around like a toy. This soon becomes tiresome and starts to spoil the enjoyment of the product..
Full use of Bumpmapping and Specular techniques are used a pity its not carried onto the bodywork of the Train
Staying with the train for a moment , there also does not seem to be a as much work put into the work rendering this object as there does with the tunnel environment. In fact the train is rather dull and flat looking, with odd and very rough textures in places and a rather curious method has been used to create the glass which is so subtle it gives the appearance most of the time of no glasswork at all. As you spend most of your time in the CAb its quite a good representation of the PATH though each cab is the same , the slight differences in reality are not observed, this makes you feel slightly shortchanged.
There are in reality some sharp turns in the PATH, however not so tight that walls actually hit your train and pass through the body
Above ground things start to fall apart. It soon becomes apparant here that the graphics engine was not designed for this, the draw distance needs attention and the use of a pixellated horizon is rather horrible. Most Objects seem very crude and low in resolution. The world is also absolutely dead. Cars stand abandoned on the freeway like a scene from "I am Legend" , which is rather fitting because then we come to the passengers who all appear to have been infected by a curious disease which makes them look like creatures from a 1980s computer game.
Dont worry.. I hear Will Smith has found the Zombie cure
Its hard to say if we have a product here that shows its possible too have refined graphics in a Rail Sim game but its been rushed and we only got the tunnel part finished by release date. Or we got a 3rd party graphics engine (its actually this one http://www.terathon.com/c4engine/index.php ) thats great at drawing tunnels and somone tacked a train on to it. I will reserve judgement until I see what comes next, however its hard to accept this how it is with all its flaws, especially when its a closed product that the user can do nothing with or add to.
So whats good
Quite an accurate representation of the Real Stations
The Fluidity of the movement
No Stuttering
Fantastic underground graphics
Lovely light work
The bad
Diabolical Physics...(fixable one would think and something that would make a huge difference)
Graphics Engine struggles with the outside world (though it copes better at night)
The bizzare AI with there horrible textures(its just eye candy)
The terrible graphics in places (AI which only have one side which is then mirrored in reverse, the low res signage)
The lack of detail work put into the trains itself, they all sound the same (which is nothing like the real thing)
Poor finishing in silly areas (ahem, announcements of this quality should not be in a full price product) and the positioning and errors in some of the Speed Warnings should have been spotted in Beta Testing.
Is the signalling actually working by watching the AI or is it also just Eye candy tied to the schedule (Im not sure but its another lost oppurtunity if thats all its doing).. In fact is AI in existence at all, should we just call it decorative traffic, whatever it is theres not enough of it especially at Terminals and on the NJ Transit Corridor..
and finally the concept itself.. In the end if the user can't make activities and the AI isnt really being despatched but is simply timed eye candy, you quickly run out of things to do...
The view from the cab looking out into the smooth tunnels makes for a stunning immersive feel
When your in the tunnels the use of light rendering technology and a modern 3d graphics engine make for a superb immersive feeling.. Its silky smooth with superb frame rates even at full settings and high resolutions. However it soon becomes apparant that this silky smoothness is being marred by one of the worst physics engines ever to be placed inside a simulator. The train has absolutely no real weight in this artificial world, and simply moves around like a toy. This soon becomes tiresome and starts to spoil the enjoyment of the product..
Full use of Bumpmapping and Specular techniques are used a pity its not carried onto the bodywork of the Train
Staying with the train for a moment , there also does not seem to be a as much work put into the work rendering this object as there does with the tunnel environment. In fact the train is rather dull and flat looking, with odd and very rough textures in places and a rather curious method has been used to create the glass which is so subtle it gives the appearance most of the time of no glasswork at all. As you spend most of your time in the CAb its quite a good representation of the PATH though each cab is the same , the slight differences in reality are not observed, this makes you feel slightly shortchanged.
There are in reality some sharp turns in the PATH, however not so tight that walls actually hit your train and pass through the body
Above ground things start to fall apart. It soon becomes apparant here that the graphics engine was not designed for this, the draw distance needs attention and the use of a pixellated horizon is rather horrible. Most Objects seem very crude and low in resolution. The world is also absolutely dead. Cars stand abandoned on the freeway like a scene from "I am Legend" , which is rather fitting because then we come to the passengers who all appear to have been infected by a curious disease which makes them look like creatures from a 1980s computer game.
Dont worry.. I hear Will Smith has found the Zombie cure
Its hard to say if we have a product here that shows its possible too have refined graphics in a Rail Sim game but its been rushed and we only got the tunnel part finished by release date. Or we got a 3rd party graphics engine (its actually this one http://www.terathon.com/c4engine/index.php ) thats great at drawing tunnels and somone tacked a train on to it. I will reserve judgement until I see what comes next, however its hard to accept this how it is with all its flaws, especially when its a closed product that the user can do nothing with or add to.
So whats good
Quite an accurate representation of the Real Stations
The Fluidity of the movement
No Stuttering
Fantastic underground graphics
Lovely light work
The bad
Diabolical Physics...(fixable one would think and something that would make a huge difference)
Graphics Engine struggles with the outside world (though it copes better at night)
The bizzare AI with there horrible textures(its just eye candy)
The terrible graphics in places (AI which only have one side which is then mirrored in reverse, the low res signage)
The lack of detail work put into the trains itself, they all sound the same (which is nothing like the real thing)
Poor finishing in silly areas (ahem, announcements of this quality should not be in a full price product) and the positioning and errors in some of the Speed Warnings should have been spotted in Beta Testing.
Is the signalling actually working by watching the AI or is it also just Eye candy tied to the schedule (Im not sure but its another lost oppurtunity if thats all its doing).. In fact is AI in existence at all, should we just call it decorative traffic, whatever it is theres not enough of it especially at Terminals and on the NJ Transit Corridor..
and finally the concept itself.. In the end if the user can't make activities and the AI isnt really being despatched but is simply timed eye candy, you quickly run out of things to do...
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