One of my high school social studies projects was to design a city, so I developed a subterranean civilization where the proletariat mined carcinogenic minerals all day and lived in areas likely to be attacked by pernicious, mole people, while the bourgeoisie lived in fancy smancy houses far away from mutant, man-eating molepeople. I’m sharing this little tidbit to bring up two points: I sometimes tend to have an overactive imagination and to let you know that the story I just told is about as close as I’ve ever come to playing a simulation game.

I’ve typically avoided sim games like Darth Vader avoids non-black attire, so when I say that I really enjoyedTrain Frontier Express, keep in mind that this is coming from someone who knows little about the genre and hasn’t spent sleepless nights designing roller coasters or farms. If you’ve sunk hundreds of hours into the depths of PC simulations, this might be a little basic, but if you’re a bit curious, this is the perfect place to start. Naming this Train Frontier Express is actually selling it a bit short. Although it is based on the hobby of model railroading, I actually spent far more time messing around with everything not involving trains. This isn’t so much a a train simulator as it is a world construction playset, and a damned fun one at that.

Read the full review at the Armless Octopus