Developer: Urban Games
Publisher: Good Shepherd Entertainment, Nacon
Platform: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Tested on: PS4, PS5
Transport Fever 2: Console Edition – Review
Simulation games have been rising in popularity in the past year thanks to unique concepts and bigger budgets. In 2019, PC gamers were treated to Transport Fever 2, a game that focused on managing a network of vehicles to ensure the good transport of people and resources throughout the past two centuries. Now, four years later, the game is being brought over to modern consoles.
Story
The story of a simulation game is never the biggest focus, most of them take the easy route of making the player start up a company and letting it grow. Transport Fever 2 goes a different route, however. The game contains a campaign mode split up into different chapters, each containing a smaller story in a unique location and time period. Throughout this campaign, players will experience the development of transportation from the early 19th century up until our modern day. This form of story mode breathes fresh air into an old formula. The variety in locations and objectives makes the campaign mode feel unique and makes you excited for the next chapter, never knowing what to expect. This can range from building the longest railway in Russia to building the first airplane route in France.
Aside from the main objective, every chapter contains a handful of side quests. This is where the developers clearly wanted to have some fun in an otherwise serious game. While the main objectives focus on the development of the world’s transportation network, the side stories create fun little adventures like hunting bigfoot or pleasing a snake god to rid your offices of pesky critters.
Graphics
The visuals of Transport Fever 2 portray a realistic world. All the terrains, buildings, and stations have a clear distinct look that makes it easy to recognize what you’re looking at. When you take a closer look at all these elements, you see that the developers weren’t focusing on the details. This is understandable since most of your time is spent zoomed out to manage the extensive networks.
Where the developers did spend their time and budget are the vehicles. The game boasts an extensive collection of cars, trains, boats, and planes. Not only vehicles from through the ages, but also designs from different parts of the world. All these vehicles have been created with care to historical accuracy.
Sound
While a simple collection of atmospheric songs would have done the trick, Transport Fever 2 went all out with its soundtrack. Musician Admiral James T. delivers a collection of great songs that make every mission that much more enjoyable. Not only are there different instruments used for each chapter to fit the style of the location, but there are also multiple easter eggs hidden in the songs. Like the Tetris theme hidden in the soundtrack of the levels in Russia.
Aside from the surprisingly solid soundtrack, there is also full narration in the entire campaign. A collection of narrators deliver a solid performance, which was in no way necessary but did enhance the experience just that bit more.
Gameplay
The gameplay is where a simulation game succeeds or fails, especially on consoles. Most of these games have a lot going on, making it almost necessary to have an entire keyboard at your disposal. That is why many simulators don’t translate well, or at all, to a console with a controller. Transport Fever 2: Console Edition makes this transfer without any problems. All buttons on the controller were perfectly utilized to make full use of the many options in the game and the clear interface makes everything easy to navigate, resulting in a smooth experience.
As mentioned before, Transport Fever 2 features an expansive campaign that also acts as the game’s tutorial. During the multiple chapters, players will slowly get the hang of everything the game has to offer, introducing new gameplay mechanics and testing the skills already acquired during the previous levels. While such a long learning curve can become tiresome, the stories and objectives in each chapter make it feel like much more of a fun experience. This is especially true when taking the side quests and unlimited budget into account, which offer the freedom to experiment and improve your skills through trial and error. All this adds up to a very beginner-friendly experience.
Aside from the campaign, there is also free mode, which is more akin to your classic ‘start a company and do your own thing’ mode. Each playthrough of this game starts with a randomly generated map where players can test out their skills and learn to manage a budget. While it is a simple sandbox, there are a lot of customization options to make every game unique. This ranges from choosing the size of the map to the historical era you start in. This, combined with multiple locations and national transports, makes every playthrough unique.
While the game is released for both the previous and current generation of consoles, it is clearly optimized for the latter. The PS4 version is filled with long loading times and frequent frame drops when too much is going on. Combined with the occasional game crash the PlayStation 4 version is clearly inferior, but still enjoyable nonetheless. All these problems have been dealt with in the PS5 version of the game.
Conclusion
Transport Fever 2: Console Edition is a great addition to the simulator genre and an example of a good console port. A unique campaign makes it a beginner-friendly experience for newcomers to the genre, but it also boasts enough freedom and optimization to keep veterans entertained. Even with an inferior version on the previous generation of consoles, the game is a good experience thanks to a great overall package.
Transport Fever 2: Console Edition - Review,
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