REVIEW: Industry Giant 2

Industry Giant 2 attempts to fill a unique void in the Xbox One’s games store. While there are countless sports, racing, fighting, platforming and shooting games; there are very few games that are pure strategy and simulation. Off the top of my head I can only think of Prison Architect and the unreleased Cities Skylines. This means that there is a hole for a very good work simulator to fill. But is Industry Giant the proverbial cork I am looking for?

I would say yes. Industry Giant 2 is a perfect blend of strategy and simulation. The game is not perfect, that is not what I mean. Merely, I mean that the mixture is in equilibrium. Each check has a balance to be enacted. Each job has a worker to fill it. Each click of my A button sends another alligator to its death so a debutante can have her new alligator clutch.

Industry Giant 2 is broken into two main components: an endless mode and a campaign mode. Before starting either of these modes, it is best to do the three short tutorials.

The tutorials do a really good job of explaining “how”. However, they do a pretty shoddy job of explaining “why”. For example, in the first tutorial I had to build a grocery store. The game explains what buttons I must press and how to see who in the community my store will service. I then plopped down my store, moved through a few more menus, and then had a chicken farm producing eggs and a cow farm producing milk.

In this way the game is very easy. The menus are a bit clunky, but they are also intuitive. It is to say, I understand why I pressed the wrong button so often. But the tutorial made sure I understood how to get started and place everything. Then I jumped into the campaign.

I was very unprepared for the campaign, even on easy. I played the first of four mission almost twenty times before realizing the city I chose to build my farms around was just not going to produce enough. This is what I mean when I say the tutorial did not explain why. Why did little numbers pop-up over the farms before I placed them, and how did that correspond directly to my chosen production level? Why was there an option to adjust worker pay, and what benefit would I get for doing it?

I do not want to harp on this point for too long as I do understand that the exploration, trial-and-error and problem solving are strengths of this genre. But I wished that the tutorial set me up for success rather than just teaching the basic mechanics of the game. Once I finally completed the first mission, I was better prepped to face the second mission of the easy campaign. Of course, I failed that multiple times as well as I had no idea about the oil in the south of the map. Once I figured that out, it was less-rough sailing ahead. Eventually I beat the entire campaign and moved on to endless.

Endless mode is not a unique mode. Most simulation games have a mode called sandbox, free-play, etc. Endless is Industry Giant 2’s sandbox mode. I selected easy as my starting level, and I was given $10 million to start building my empire. I found this mode much more fun than the campaign, but also sort of short-winded.

With the $10 million, I started a small farm and ensured I got my cash back up to my starting money before expanding. I then moved on to another city and did the same thing. I did this multiple times throughout the map. By this time I was making hundreds of thousands of dollars every month and the game became ultra-easy. I then started experimenting with logging companies, chemical companies, train stations and larger production methods.

As time progressed in endless mode (I began in 1900 and went until 2027), I unlocked new items to build including teddy bears, new furniture styles and sports equipment. I thought that was one of the coolest things about Industry Giant 2’s endless mode–not everything was available on day one. I had to work to keep the company afloat long enough to reap the rewards of technological progression.

Endless mode has a lot of maps to play on, each with different terrain, resources, city size and weather conditions. The weather will not affect the farming much on easy, but really packs a punch on medium and hard. After playing the endless mode for over a century, I really did not have the urge to try it again on the other maps or difficulties. And I think that is one of the greatest flaws of this game: the game plays itself.

That phrase is used a lot more in strategy board games than in video games, but I believe it applies just the same. What I mean is that once I found the path to win, I just had to keep walking the path and nothing stopped me. In board games this usually happens when the game begins to take away choice and just has the player “move here, now play this token, now take this card, now fight this guy, now take this point, now you win!”

Industry Giant 2 does not have a direct path to victory in this way, as the game is completely open to the player. The game has a direct path to unlocking new production methods, modes of transportation and products. There was no skill tree for me to put points into, or path of building one factory in order to start on the tech path of another type of factory. It was just time and waiting in order to unlock these new “skills.” I know not every game needs a skill tree-type mechanic, but without some sort of choice, the game becomes the same.

As long as I built slowly, ensuring my current farm would always finance my new endeavor, I never ran the risk of running out of money. This took away any sense of fear of experimenting or the idea of a risk versus reward. For a game about capitalism called Industry Giant, I would think there would be a little more emphasis put on the risk of breaking into a new industry.

I found the art style of Industry Giant 2 to be pretty cool. It is very pixelated in a 16-bit fashion. It looks a lot like I remember some of the old real-time strategy games on the Super Nintendo. Zooming in and out does not hurt or help the graphical fidelity, it is just like walking closer to a picture.

Flocks of birds float across the screen every so often, and the animals in the farms move around to graze. In town, cars are seen traveling in and out of the paved roadways. Other than this, the game is pretty barren. There are not a lot of noises or sounds being made by the game. The atmosphere is mostly business, and I felt like I was in a board room making key decisions.

Summary

I really liked Industry Giant 2, I just think it is lacking in replayability. The controller scheme works on the Xbox One gamepad even though it is a bit clunky, and overall it is just fun. This is a game that is easy to get thirty or more hours out of, if you do not use a walkthrough, and I think that is enough. Fans of the genre may find the endless mode an endless barrel of fun. However, the lack of a skill tree and a clear path to victory make subsequent playthroughs less exciting.