Trains have been linked with PC gaming like no other form of public transport. From A-Train and Railroad Tycoon right up to modern games like Trainz and Chris Sawyer’s Locomotion, it’s never long before someone releases a new game that has something to do with trains.

It’s not surprising then that casual developers Icehill Entertainment have got in on the act and produced a time management game based on running a small time train company.

For those unfamiliar with the time management genre, it’s all about having a limited amount of time to make decisions.

In the case of Incredible Express, players must place track and direct trains to pick up various goods and deliver them to a town within a time limit, making sure not to run over animals or crash trains into each other.

If that sounds simple, it’s because it is. You take your train, guide it to the farm that produces grain, and bring it back to town before the time limit runs out. The game starts out pretty slow, with you building small amounts of track and delivering a single type of good back to the town.

Quickly, more goods are added, and after the first few levels you have to start delivering different goods to factories to produce more expensive.

For example, bread, meat and tomatoes will produce a hamburger which can then be sold in town for much more money than the three base items combined.

The player spends their time making sure the train takes the most efficient route possible, creating new sections of track and managing switches and traffic lights. It starts slow, but like all good time management games it add news features regularly and quickly becomes addictive.

Making Tracks

The great thing about Incredible Express is that while it shares quite a bit of its basic game elements with games like Cakemania, it doesn’t feel like a Cakemania clone.

Perhaps it’s the fact you aren’t in direct control of your train, or perhaps because laying the track gives you some element of freedom over each level, but it feels much more involved and reliant on strategy than other time management games.

Later levels involve you doing plenty at once and you even get to run several trains simultaneously at some points during the game. This keeps things fresh and varied but that isn’t to say Last Express is particularly deep.  Despite all the additions the game never really picks up difficulty from the first few levels.

You get a gold, silver or pass for each level, and as you move pass the time limit for each grade, you drop down to the next. Getting gold on all but a few levels isn’t a problem, and the “pass” grade is so generous that it’s really difficult to fail unless to completely mess up the track of miss the goal of the level.

The game does give a reason to aim for gold though, with plenty of different achievements and enough levels to make you first play through last through more than a long afternoon.

There are even a few bonus levels accessed by gaining points on bonus rounds. In fact, there’s everything short of a multiplayer scoreboard to keep you from getting bored.

Graphically there’s plenty to see, bright vibrant colours and a varied style between levels. Everything is played from a top down perspective which means sometimes things on the track can get in the way of switches you need to press, but this only a small issue. Music and Sound are average, but sound a lot like the music from the Sims, oddly.

If you’ve enjoyed time management games before but have got bored with the same old game just having its theme recycled, Incredible Express offers something a little different.

You won’t find an intense challenge or an in-depth railroad simulation, but it’s a good way to spend a few hours at a time that doesn’t involve making cakes.

Review copy generiously provided by Digital distribution service, GamersGate

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Reviewed By: Daniel