I’ve only ever been handed one police caution, and it was for playing a train sim. Back when I was a lot younger and a whole lot sillier I imported a PSP as soon as it came out in Japan, alongside launch essentials Ridge Racer, Lumines and – just because – Densha de Go! 2, which soon became the default way to show off my new toy. Which is exactly what I was doing in Greenwich Park when I was showing it off to a friend who was so impressed that he rammed the thing up as loud as it would go while tooting the train’s horn, rolling around in laughter because I think he’d had a bit of a toot himself beforehand, until some passing policemen expressed their displeasure at our behaviour. And that’s the boring story of how I got done for disturbing the peace with a PSP, and for tooting in public.
Train Sim World 2Developer: Dovetail GamesPublisher: Dovetail GamesPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Out now on PC, PS4 and Xbox One
Which is a long-winded way to say I don’t have much experience of train sims at all, but coming off the back of a month spent with Microsoft Flight Simulator my taste for operating exacting replicas of elaborate machinery has been fully awakened. The arrival of Train Sim World 2 is as perfectly timed as… Well, I was going to make some joke about train timetables but it’s been so long since I’ve seen a train station I’m not sure I can.
Maybe that explains why I found it so thrilling to find myself in Dovetail Games’ take on Oxford Circus station, running down the platform to the lead carriage and taking a seat for a few short stops on the Bakerloo line. It’s as exacting a replica of the London Underground 1972 stock as I’ve seen in a game, allowing you to walk from one end of the train to another, strolling from carriage to carriage. You can even step outside if you want, walking from one platform to another in replicas of Bakerloo line stations told with a fair amount of detail.
The real magic moment, though, comes when you’re invited to get up from your seat – perfectly furnished in the correct fabric pattern, of course – to go and open that door at the front end of the lead carriage. It’s sort of akin to opening the door to one of Fallout’s vaults at the outset of your adventure there, as you’re suddenly confronted with the scope and scale of what lies ahead of you – only in this case it’s a fully operational and delightfully dateed cockpit of the ageing workhorse, a thing that looks like it’s come from the age of beige and bakelite.