Transarctica
| Developer: N/A | Graphics: |
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| Publisher: Silmarils | Sound: |
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| Year: 1993 | Difficulty: |
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| Genre: Strategy | Lastability: |
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| Number of players: 1 | Rating: |
7/10 | |
In the United States, the title was changed to Arctic Baron. This game is inspired by the prolific series of science fiction novels, La Compagnie des glaces, by Georges-Jean Arnaud, which consists of around a hundred volumes, published between 1988 and 2005.
The storyline, particularly relevant today, is reminiscent of 1984 and Mad Max (and, of course, a certain Matrix): In an effort to combat global warming, scientists detonated two atomic bombs simultaneously at the poles. The idea was to release enough dust into the atmosphere to block the sun and counteract the greenhouse effect. It worked so well that humanity was plunged into a nuclear winter for centuries, covering the sky with a thick, perpetual cloud cover and blanketing the ground with several metres of snow. Extreme cold, famine, anarchy, and then dictatorship. You asked our leaders to act on climate change, well, here you go!
From then on, what remained of humanity lived miserably in settlements resembling fortified camps, connected by railways and ruled with an iron fist by a powerful and hegemonic railway company, called the Union Viking.
Note that in the original work, the cataclysm is triggered by the accidental explosion of the Moon (then intensively exploited by the nuclear industry), and not one, but dozens of railway companies, of various sizes, fiercely compete for control of the new frozen world.
And you? You are an “ambivalent”, a sort of climate-skeptic of the future, searching for information on a mythical star once called “the Sun”, which the company does everything to keep in the shadows, so to speak. You are a dissident, in other words. You have a problem with authority, you believe that you are special, that somehow the rules do not apply to you. Obviously you are mistaken.
The game begins as you’ve just “taken possession” of a massive steam locomotive: the Transarctica. Your mission is to gather all the fanatics in the area and find a way to restore the Sun and thaw the world. Wait, the scientists in the prologue suggest launching a salvo of nuclear missiles into the clouds. How, no?
So, you find yourself dropped into the wild with limited resources, dragging your salt box freely across the continent (in real time) and under the constant threat of an oppressive local administration. Different choices are available to you: visit towns to gather coal (both a precious source of energy and currency), collect information, and recruit a small army. Occasionally, you may play the smuggler, hunt mammoths, or engage in slave trafficking. And if things don’t go as you’d like, the developers have even included a “suicide” option.
The railway combat system, quite original, is reminiscent of pirate ship skirmishes, and the presentation is somewhat similar to North and South, albeit much slower, unfortunately: Two trains face off, or rather pass each other on parallel tracks, at the top and bottom of the screen. You can only move forward and backward to align the cannons with your targets and send soldiers to “board” the enemy train. I’m not particularly fond of these mini-games that appear in the middle of a strategy game, but here, it’s fairly well integrated into the rest. However, the animation could be better. Note that these sequences can be skipped.
Finally, as you progress, and if prosperity smiles upon you, you’ll be able to attach new cars to your train, thus transporting more goods, weapons, and soldiers.
The interface, simple and sleek, works entirely with the mouse. For once, the controls are easy to grasp if you make the effort to read the few pages of the manual.
On the same theme (post-apocalyptic-icy-on-rails), I recommend the black-and-white comic series: Le Transperceneige (adapted into a film in 2013).
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