Trainz Simulator 12

About

"Trainz Simulator 12 offers a dream railroad experience, now with multiplayer. Control powerful locomotives, design and build your own railroads, and share your creations with other players. With new routes like Southern China and ECML Kings Cross-Newcastle, explore stunning landscapes and operate realistic trains."

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

77%

Audience ScoreBased on 1,626 reviews

graphics42 positive mentions

optimization24 negative mentions

The game is nostalgic and features a wide variety of trains and routes, making it enjoyable for train enthusiasts.
The route building and customization options are extensive, allowing players to create their own unique experiences.
The community support and availability of mods and additional content enhance the gameplay significantly.

The game suffers from poor optimization, leading to frequent crashes and lag, even on high-end systems.
The content manager is often buggy and difficult to use, making it hard to download and manage additional content.
Many players report issues with missing dependencies and a lack of support from the developers, making the game frustrating to play.

graphics
150 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
28%
56%
16%
The graphics of the game have received mixed reviews, with many players noting that they are outdated and do not meet modern standards, often resulting in poor frame rates and stability issues. While some users appreciate the visual aspects and find them enjoyable, others criticize the graphics as being subpar compared to competitors, with calls for a complete overhaul of the graphics engine. Overall, the game is seen as fun despite its graphical shortcomings, particularly for train enthusiasts who value gameplay over visual fidelity.
- “The beautiful graphics and immersive gameplay is a must for anyone interested in railway simulators.”
- “A fun and awesome game; great graphics would recommend to anyone.”
- “One of the best Trainz games and I think it still looks very good graphically - almost as good as DTG's Train Simulator games now.”
- “Old game that runs with horrible frame rate and has ugly graphics!”
- “This game is nothing like the trailer... this is probably close to the worst graphics engine I've ever seen... it almost looks like they went to downtown London and took pictures of the walls and photoshopped them into the game, and for the people, they look like Civil War era men taken out of the textbook from school and pasted on badly shaped people.”
- “Flipping terrible, graphics are awful, waste of £23, train simulator 2014 is so much better.”
optimization
78 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
18%
51%
31%
The game's optimization is widely criticized, with users reporting frequent crashes, unstable frame rates, and significant performance issues that render it nearly unplayable at times. Many players note that the game struggles to run smoothly even on capable hardware, suggesting that the developers have not adequately optimized the engine for modern systems. Overall, the poor optimization detracts from the experience, overshadowing the game's potential as a sandbox for train enthusiasts.
- “If you are looking to build mega routes and get the best performance, Trainz 12 is the way to go.”
- “To start with the good, the game has a decent enough amount of content, and the ability to easily make your own content or import it is essential for this type of game and is a plus for me.”
- “Very little of the time has been spent actually in-game, which, once it's loaded in and works, I have no issues with at all, even in regards to performance issues.”
- “The issue is things like performance, glitches, and the content manager constantly crashing make the game almost unplayable.”
- “I bought this as I played the original Trainz way back when it came out, and while trains/model trains are fun, this is definitively a cheaper alternative to building a proper model railway. Unfortunately, it also turned out way less satisfying, mostly due to really, really, really bad optimization. I cannot stress this enough - the game is optimized absolutely terribly, to a point where the framerate is 80% of the time barely passable, and the remaining 20% of the time it's a single-digit slideshow.”
- “This game is the most poorly optimized game I have played in a long time.”
stability
52 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
12%
4%
85%
The game's stability is heavily criticized, with numerous reports of crashes, freezes, and performance issues that render it nearly unplayable for many users. Players experience frequent glitches, long loading times, and significant lag, even on high-end systems, leading to frustration and disappointment. Overall, the game's stability issues overshadow its potential, making it difficult to recommend.
- “It runs great!”
- “Great game, runs great.”
- “At least we have to give it some credit; it has no glitches.”
- “The issue is things like performance, glitches, and the content manager constantly crashing make the game almost unplayable.”
- “Extremely buggy, and horrible framerate.”
- “Paid £7 for this game and it constantly freezes and closes down automatically!”
gameplay
16 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25%
56%
19%
The gameplay has received mixed reviews, with some users enjoying it while others note significant issues such as lag and a lack of a true speed feel. Despite these drawbacks, many find the overall experience engaging, particularly praising the building overlay feature known as the "surveyor." Comparisons to other train simulators highlight both strengths and weaknesses in gameplay mechanics.
- “Fun gameplay.”
- “Gameplay has both easy and complex elements, similar to train simulator.”
- “Have not gotten a lot of gameplay because I spent most of the time getting a serial number.”
- “It has some issues I would agree (not a real speed 'feel', gameplay gets laggy on most maps no matter your hardware, ability to eat way too many hours), but it more than makes up for those issues and more with the surveyor alone (the surveyor is what they call the building overlay).”
- “Even Dovetail's TS2015 is better in gameplay, but it in turn has the total unplayability bugs that exist in every train sim ever since 2006.”
story
14 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
21%
57%
21%
The game lacks a traditional narrative, functioning more as a simulator with no defined story elements or objectives. Players can engage in missions or explore in sandbox mode, but there is no overarching plot or exploration to drive the experience.
- “As well as completing missions, you can play in sandbox/freedom mode and do whatever you like.”
- “First mission I've played was a 7 locomotive haul, which took a minute of fast panning to view the end of my train.”
- “Such as reading the instructions in the career mode and properly driving if on a mission.”
- “No story.”
- “No objectives, missions, points, exploration, nothing...”
- “Calling this game a simulator would be like calling Just Cause 3 a story-driven game: it's not wrong, but it's not right either.”
grinding
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25%
75%
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be extremely time-consuming, often requiring significant dedication akin to having a second life. While the process of downloading content can be tedious, the abundance of available resources is noted as a positive feature.
- “You'll need a second life for grinding.”
- “You'll need a second life for grinding.”
- “Grinding feels like an endless chore that takes away from the enjoyment of the game.”
replayability
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The reviews indicate that while the game is generally playable, it lacks significant elements that enhance replayability, suggesting that players may not find compelling reasons to return after their initial experience.
humor
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
150%
The humor in the game is characterized by its playful and whimsical nature, as exemplified by the catchy and lighthearted phrase "Ha funny train go toot," which suggests a focus on silly and entertaining elements that appeal to a broad audience.
- “Ha! The funny train goes toot!”
- “Ha! The funny train goes toot!”
- “Ha! The funny train goes toot!”
monetization
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The reviews do not provide relevant information regarding the monetization aspect of the game, focusing instead on a specific issue related to train advertising and station inaccuracies. Therefore, no summary can be derived about monetization from the provided texts.