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Review

A-Train HX

3.0

Format Xbox 360

Developer Genki

Publisher 505 Games

Genre Sim / Strategy

11-Apr-2008 The most confusing train wreck of a game ever

7 Comments

So, everyone is laughing right now. Laughing at the title screen. Laughing at the '720p definition' claim. Laughing at the building blocks graphics. Laughing at the poor sap sitting in a slightly wonky chair, shoulders slumped, 360 pad loosely draping from his hands as he wonders where it all went wrong. More specifically, wondering what the hell he's supposed to do next.

So what is A-Train HX? Essentially it's a city-building/train simulator game. Naturally, our first thought was to build a roller coaster-style track, but it soon became apparent we wouldn't be able to do that.

Why? The same reason why it's so hard to review the game - it combines being needlessly complicated with having no tutorial whatsoever.

It's not a great combination, as you find out when you get dumped in a half-built town, thrown a dwindling sum of cash and told to get on with it. You're not even sure what it is you're supposed to be getting on with.

Between the title screen and the end credits - we're presuming, of course, there are end credits - absolutely nothing is explained. So you bang your head against a dozen menus, struggle with the interface, accidentally cancel your trains and build a petrol station, but you're not entirely sure why you're doing it. And we mean that both from a game point of view and way of spending your free time point of view.

Look, there's Foreman, telling us we can't build without more materials. But just how are you supposed to get more materials? He doesn't say. He just flashes that non-animated grin of his at us. Now we've got an error noise telling us that we can't place another train on that track. Why not? Who's to say? You see the fun is in finding out for yourself!

There's no obvious way of measuring your own progress, seeing where you're going wrong or figuring out how to 'win'. So just how exactly do you win? By not picking this game up in the first place, that's how.

In fact, we take back what we said earlier. It's easy to review A-Train HX. It's one of the most pointlessly confusing, effortlessly dull and thoroughly lifeless games that we've ever played. And we've played Bomberman: Act Zero. A-Train?

It's not even as fun as a train.

Ryan King