Rail Nation

Oh, how we love Tycoon games or just similar things like this. If you I get something with train, I will just take few days holiday to be able to play. But Rail Nation lasts longer then few days. Is it so entertaining? Let’s have a look at in our review.

I actually hadn’t heard about the game until you bumped into it when surfing the vast internet world. What rejoice is gave me when I found that something like this exists. Since the times of Transport Tycoon Deluxe I haven’t had in hands anything better and this game offers trains.



The beginning is very positive. Rain Nation has many servers to choose from and most of them are in various languages and you can join any and any numbers of servers as you wish. When you join a German speaking server, you will play on a German map, if it’s USA then you play on the USA map. It’s just amazing. Creating your characters and the general user interface are simple and they guarantee you will be immediately pulled into the game making sending the trains into cities and factories, collecting money and upgrading your city and depot real fun. But... but the that’s the main and only game activity you get for 66 days.

The main trick in Rain Nation is that the game is separated into several eras. You begin with the early trains and as the time goes you finish in the modern times. Each era takes 11 days. It also sounds superb, most of the player love begin from the scratch to be able to make your own army of trains ruling the world. But there is a small problem. You don’t have too much to do in the early period. Ok, you start connecting mines and places producing basic resources waiting to be transported into factories and from there you get some gods into your main city. The connections grow and you begin to prosper but most of the time you have to wait for enough capital, upgrade few things and just do passive gaming.

I hope that I haven’t scared you now, it surely has some interesting meaning and entertainment for some players. Especially when clans (companies with many players) start competing among themselves (the big one is on the USA server where is the competition between the West and the East), and according the gain, city development get points and the best groups become famous. It’s a huge motivation to continue playing, making the game even more interesting where playing has some final goal. But it still lacks something more besides waiting for money, next era and finishing research. And get ready from the dark area called P2W.

I have a great feeling from the research. Your laboratory in the home depot produces research points which can be spent for improving old trains or unlocking new pieces. This work goes through not only technology but the time itself. Besides the research, your home base contains buildings as banks, rail construction, hotel, restaurant and more stuff. Each has some specific role and can give you nice bonuses. To upgrade them you have to invest a lot of money and make some important decisions which can have big effect in the far futures. It’s really important if you prefer a new train, buying more stuff or upgrading buildings. Really cool.

But here comes one important things which can stop you getting into the game. If you are one of the players who want great results and be among the best players, leading your clan to the victory, you don’t want to invest into the game then go away, just start looking for something else. In Rail Nation you can speed up, finish and improve absolutely everything for real money and in combination with the premium account the paying players are just too far ahead. It’s not just finishing research and unlocking better trains you can even buy a premium pieces. (it’s really a huge boost) which mostly completely decide the game. But if you are a player who just plays to have fun, watch his empire grow, have joy from prosperous lines and you celebrate any new level then you will love Rail Nation. The world can go to hell, you are here only for the Tycoon feeling and you will get more than that. The decision is up to you.

Speaking for myself I can confirm that Rain Nation is a good game but can be a bad as well according the thing you are looking for. Graphics and audio are fine and combine old-school gameplay with some modern styles and content, let’s say it’s a casual Tycoon. But I will repeat once again, if the result is important for you and you love watching your name rising among other players without, don’t play it.