The name and title font suggested a link with Microsoft Games' aerial opus, but MSTS was actually coded in the UK.
Guided by a glossy gate-fold guide to signals and speed limit signage I spent many happy hours trundling back and forth between Yatsushiro and Yoshimatsu, picking up and depositing invisible passengers, admiring scenery, and sounding my maudlin horn at the deer that often trespassed on the track. Fond of bucolic branchlines and dawdling railcars I quickly developed an affection for the mountainous Hisatsu Line and the boxy KiHa 31 diesel units that worked it. Microsoft Train Simulator shipped with two Japanese and two US routes plus Austrian and British real estate. Today's top rail sim seems to have no interest in the iron horses of Japan. If you're a fan of blistering bullet trains and beautiful Bo-Bo-Bos, the Train Simulator 2016 DLC list must make depressing reading. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time. Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives.
