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PS3
Railfan: Taiwan High Speed Rail
- New Import, In Stock |
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NCS
Game Synopsis
©NCS»
Twenty seven years after the concept of the Taiwan
High Speed Rail twinkled in its creators' collective
eyes and six years after construction started, the
new railroad system opened on January 5, 2007.
Spanning eight cities across western Taiwan from
Taipei to Zuoying, service to five additional cities
is planned in the next few years including Changhua
and Yunlin.
The first Railfan game for the PS3 has sold well to
a contingent of devoted train-game fans and the
second Railfan gives players the reins of a
Shinkansen Super Express on the Taiwan HSR. The
video used in Railfan was captured with a stationary
high-definition camera mounted behind the windshield
of the Super Express which spooled in 700 km of
footage as the train ran through the entire HSR line
both ways. In other words, if you're an aficionado
of trains and Taiwan in general, you'll get to see
the geography, sights, and landscape of Taiwan as it
appears from the vantage point of a conductor who
motors along at 290 km/h.
Similar to the Densha de Go! games from Taito,
players take control of a train and manipulate the
virtual levers to accelerate between stations and
decelerate when entering a platform. The key to
success in conducting a passenger train is perfect
braking so that the train fits neatly alongside each
station platform. Once the train is sidled properly
against the platform, the passengers can step off
without falling into the tracks. That would be a bad
thing.
Jan Code:
4571165000090
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NCS Game Notes
» Before the Taiwan HSR opened up, the press and the
public in Taiwan had fatalistic views of the train
system's debut and operations. At one point, we
heard ruminations of a 50-50 chance of a derailment
on the first day of service. There were some ticket
sale problems and little glitches at the launch but
otherwise, the fears and malfeasance that festered
in the years before the opening were largely
unfounded.
» On the game screen, the left side shows a schema
of the moving track with the train on the bottom and
on the upper right corner is the time, the name of
the next station, current speed, and distance to the
next station. The control panel is shown on the
lower portion of the screen and takes up a good
chunk of the display so that the "visor" of the
train that you peer out of is fairly constrained and
cramped. The dashboard can be toggled off so that
the full view of the oncoming tracks and the
surrounding area is shown.
» The Stations on the HSR Line are currently:
Taipel
Banciao
Taoyuan
Hsinchu
Taichung
Chiayi
Tainan
Zuoying
» The signage in the stations along the THSR, on the
backs of the chairs, and pretty much everywhere
throughout the stations is bi-lingual - Chinese and
English. To match the bilingual nature of the actual
Taiwan HSR, the interface in the Railfan game can be
played in Chinese or English.
» In addition to the game itself, the Sony team
added a sort of digital travelogue in Railfan: HSR
which shows notable sights, neighborhoods, tourist
attractions, and landmarks along the train line as
well as examples of the local cuisine at various
eateries that may be savored if you're planning on
taking a Railfan-inspired tour of Taiwan.
» The seats in the THSR Economy Class cars are
colored blue. This may indicate the western ideal of
"blue collar" where blue uniforms denoted the
working class. The Business Class car seats are
colored red. In Chinese culture, the color red is
indicative of good fortune and luck. A little bit of
extra trivia: Contrary to the Western stock market
where losses are shown in red and gains in green,
gains in Asian stock markets are displayed in red
and losses are displayed in green.
» The THSR uses the Japanese Shinkansen trains and
the UrEDAS earthquake detection system.
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This document is ©NCSX 2007. All rights
reserved. No reproduction in whole or in part of
this document may be made without express written
consent of National Console Support, Inc. |
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