Were you ever one of those kids that created elaborate train sets that expanded your whole living room? If you were, Lionel Trains: On Track may perk your interest. Lionel Trains is exactly what a few sim fans have been waiting for, a game with the ability to build without any real-life limitations like the size of your room.

Developed by Black Lantern Studios, Lionel Trains doesn’t exactly have a developer with a rich history of developing video games behind it. Black Lantern has specifically focused on handhelds with releasing two titles on the Nintendo DS. The titles they released were Elf Bowling and Uno / Skip-Bo combination. Outside of their two Nintendo DS titles, they have only worked on Gameboy Advance titles.

If you don’t know the history behind Lionel Trains then let me catch you up on their background. Lionel has been around since 1900 designing toy trains and model railroads. They were based out of Michigan until bankruptcy occurred and have been passed around through many different buyers. In 2006, the Lionel electric train was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame. Is there more to the story that has made Lionel the famous toy train maker it is known as today? You betcha, but we’ll just jump into the details on how the game turned out.

My first question I posed to myself was a simple one. Does the game provide any thrills of enjoyment? Unfortunately, not too much joy came out of building railroads on a video game when I compare it to building real life sets. There is a campaign mode, sandbox mode and free play mode to tinker around with, but Lionel Tracks feels like a barren wasteland with not much going on.

The campaign mode allows you to build the train lines towards meeting specific goals that are set within the scenario. The criteria that you will have to meet include the quota for your income or creating a certain type of track for the cities. Each city will be unique with select items they are known for and they’ll ask for you to meet the requirements of the citizens to bring those items in. The decisions you’ll have to make within the game have to do with cargo types, the supply and demand of the cities, and creating the links between cities to bring the cargo to the appropriate cities. The aspect you’ll have to pay attention to the most is the money of course.

The free play mode will give you the freedom to do whatever you want with your trains and railroads.  You’ll never have to worry about meeting those specific goals. Having fun is the only requirement with this mode. You’ll be able to rack up as much money as you can and continue to upgrade your equipment. The sandbox mode is the exact same thing but without ever having to earn money to build what your heart desires.

Is Lionel Trains: On Track the game with unlimited potential? Not even close; it’s repetitive and boring after 30 minutes of gameplay. It’s nice to play in short spurts but investing your whole day to building trains on the Nintendo DS is not something I recommend at this point. There are unlockable trains and items in the game, but there’s not much here in the replay variety. The graphics are generic, dull to the bone of the beast.

The audio isn’t that exciting and will have you yawning if you do commit to play this over the 30-minute limit I suggest. If you can’t buy your son or daughter a real-life train set, I would recommend this as a temporarily fill in. One has to ask though; do parents even buy their children train sets anymore? I hardly hear about children receiving them for Christmas anymore. Times are a changing I guess.

Gameplay: 6.0
Decent for short sessions of gameplay, but otherwise I found it lacking in entertainment.

Graphics: 6.2
Sim games never focus on graphics for the most part so I’ll cut the game some slack.

Sound: 5.8
I wanted to hear more than a few sounds of trains blowing their horns. I might want too many bells and whistles for a handheld game though.

Difficulty: Easy
Lionel Trains is a great game for on the go. Easy to jump into and tinker around with without ever leaving you stumped on how to play.

Concept: 6.9
I like the fact that developers are trying a lot of different things with their Nintendo DS games. I have never played a train simulator before so there’s always room for firsts.

Overall: 6.1
Should you buy this for yourself? Only if you were a child yourself when train sets were popular. Should you buy this for your child? It will save you money from buying the real thing. It’s an a mediocre pick-up but there are better games on the Nintendo DS to invest your time and money into.