At present, I see this as a clever concept not very cleverly carried out. For now it's available only for the steam engines of the "Riviera Line in the Fifties". What happens is that if your driving is not up to snuff, little notes pop up and the controls you've mismanaged take on a golden glow. Unfortunately, the notes provide no clues about how to manipulate those controls and the cab camera is so close to them -- and not in any way adjustable -- that doing anything about the situation is nearly impossible. By the time you've fiddled around trying to follow those partial instructions, you've passed a red signal and slammed into another train or you're speeding. Having read and memorized the controls pages of the manual (in which the controls appear on one page and the key to them on another) would, of course, help, but then you wouldn't need the hints, would you?
I very much like the concept of assistance to drivers and hope to see it expanded to the more complex diesels as well, but with the changes suggested above. As one of my Jesuit teachers often repeated, "There's always room for improvement".
Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2015 5:31 pm