Microsoft Train Simulator ( PC )

By PETER ELEY*

(Herald rating: * * * * * )

If you went to see the movie Trainspotting only to walk out in horror after the first five minutes, this is the game for you.

It's a bit naff to own up to liking trains these days — anorak, pebble-glasses, perhaps even a moped, too — but there is still a hard core who know the Flying Scotsman isn't Taggart after a few too many wee drams.

Joking apart, the big locomotives still create a sense of awe and nostalgia for a bygone age. There are TV series based on classic train journeys doing the rounds on the cable channels, and they are fascinating.

But a computer game based on trains? Microsoft Train Simulator has been in development for some time, creating a frenzy of excitement among train buffs worldwide, just check out the websites.

Well, the game has finally arrived at platform one, some 16 years after the last true train sim, Southern Belle (for the late, lamented Spectrum).

The silence in between may well be indicative of the mass interest in railway realism, but Train Simulator is a brilliant piece of software with an amazingly high level of detail.

The game features six classic train routes — the US Northeast Corridor commuter line between Washington and Philadelphia; Innsbruck to St Anton, a leg of the Orient Express; Settle to Carlisle in England's Cumbria; and two Japanese routes, Tokyo to Hakone and the Hisatsu tourist run.

Loading all six takes up 1.8 gigs of hard drive space and even one requires 500 megs, giving an idea of the depth of detail.

Although driving the trains and making them go choo-choo is the most fun, there are some game-based activities. These usually require skilful handling and shunting skills or meeting a demanding timetable, and will widen the game's appeal.

A game editor lets players customise things to their hearts' content, putting different trains on different tracks, creating timetables, and new tracks.

If you love trains, you'll never get bored with this game and it's likely there will be scenery add-ons as with Flight Simulator to freshen it up periodically.

You'll need at least a Pentium 11 266 and a 3D graphics card to run Train Simulator, although we encountered a few problems with a machine near these minimum specs. But the Flying Scotsman absolutely flew on a higher-powered Celeron 600 system.

*peter_eley@nzherald.co.nz