Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

Sid Meier’s Railroads is released and I had a chance to give it a whirl. There is much to like here, but there were a few things that bugged me, as well.

Basically, Railroads reminds me of those railroad-building or other construction-based board games (like Settlers of Catan).

If you have a good sized group of people, the multiplayer aspects of Railroads promises to be very interesting, as this game also has a strong stock-trading board game mashed in with the railroad building. I love these kinds of board games, but with Railroads using the craptastic Gamespy in-game browser combined with the fact that NO ONE appears to be playing this game online, the multiplayer aspect will be woefully underutilized. Which should come as no surprise, as this has been the case with these kinds of games since, oh… 1995 when CivNET came out.

The multiplayer is usually not the main impetus for playing this type of game anyway. The single-player scenarios seem interesting enough with their various goals spaced out over several years of game time, but after completing a few scenarios, I was left with a kind of hollow feeling. Kind of like, “That was it?” It didn’t at all give the kind of satisfaction that playing an entire game of Civilization would give you. Although, I guess it’s not fair to compare global domination versus monopolizing a network of railroads in the Northeast U.S., for example.

However, if you are someone that really enjoyed Railroad Tycoon 2 or the original Sid Meier’s Railroad Tycoon (the grandpappy of all things Tycoon-ish), I have no doubt that you will love this game.