Last Train Home Crack Status
Kerby Reynolds
Last Train Home has an intriguing premise: taking the Czechoslovak Legion home from the Eastern front via an armoured train directly through the chaos of the Russian Civil War. Its unusual mixture of survival sim, RPG, tactical skirmishes, and narrative history holds together, I think, precisely because your efforts to make it all work provide such a contrast to what an incredible mess the world around you is becoming.
It's also novel in that your goal isn't to win the war. It's to get the hell out of there. A deal was cut to evacuate you via Vladivostok, beginning a chaotic 5000 mile odyssey away from home in order to get back home. On paper you're neutral, your fledgling government even issuing orders, but you fought for the Tsar and the Allies are huffing their first hit of red scare, and neither the Reds nor relatively friendly Whites can ignore an unaligned army in their midst.
So you'll inevitably fight the Reds in particular (insistently Reds, not communists - some of your own troops will likely be communist, but, y'know, it's complicated) but potentially the Whites too, and various third party troublemakers. You'll do good turns for the locals, pick up other stragglers to swell your ranks and get more countrymen home, and buy, gather, and steal food and coal and materials to winter-proof, arm, and generally upgrade your train and keep everyone from freezing or starving.
It's a lot. Of course it's very gamified, but turning metal into armour plating for carriages, or cloth into beds and winter uniforms works as a representative abstraction. None of it feels outlandish, even when you're capturing the imperial gold reserve with a whopping ten soldiers, or having your guys research better scopes. It's a little hard to explain, but its systems have been carefully arranged to serve a thematic purpose, not just shoved in because you gotta have crafting, right?
Your soldiers are the heart of it, and they too have an RPG levelling thing going on, but again not a perfunctory one. Each of your few dozen men and women is unique, with a little biography, character traits, and a few stats. The right stats let you train them in a role, which I hesitate to call "classes" because they're actual roles within a team. A legionary can be a rifleman, a medic, and a cook, but which he'll be doing at any given moment depends on what role you've assigned him when setting up a squad or directing him to a job on the train. Each role is either combat or non-combat, but everyone can take on more roles as they gain overall experience, and experience in specific jobs grants bonus stats and special skills, some of which transfer across roles. It can be worth giving someone the medic role even if you only ever deploy them as a scout, for example, since that gives them the 'heal' skill, and a good labourer will get strong enough to be a spare rifleman before long.
Power levelling your way to a dream team doesn't work, as everyone needs rest and healing. A variety of character traits can effect story events and non-combat mission outcomes, the latter also providing low-risk experience so you can cross train your good doctor as a grenadier by having her tag along on those instead of taking up a precious slot on a fight. It all means you'll think carefully about who to send on every job, balancing their personality, skills, and above all their potential. You really need everyone to be their best self, and it's this that really elevates the whole design. It's one of the best military management games I've ever played because it really gets you thinking about how best to use all your people, not just where to stack your chips.
Thankfully, there's also minimal dicking around with inventory and only four skills can be equipped at a time, so they don't get too overwhelming in combat. Skills do vary wildly in usefulness, though. Suppressing with a machine gun works in theory but eats an entire magazine, which I found far too expensive compared to the rifleman's free bayonet charges, and scouts are in the odd position of having the most useless skill - throwing rocks that are apparently made of osmium, a distracting trick that can be replicated by anyone simply poking their head out for a moment - and four incredibly powerful, cheap ones.
Combat is probably where it's weakest, thanks to amnesiac enemy AI and an annoyingly conjoined "move slowly and hold fire and use melee" command. It means that scout will get into concealment in time but then shoot at a passing tank, getting everyone killed, or that medic will either aim at a guy a metre away or slowly creep towards him instead of charging. As your train moves Eastward, some of the hotspots you'll send parties out to investigate will be real-time scripted missions that lie somewhere between Men of War: Assault Squad and a more stealth and flanking mini-encounter game like Mutant Year Zero.
Last Train Home's other great strength is that all its parts lead so naturally into each other that its considerable length goes by in hour long waltzes from assaulting a town, to upgrading your engine while the fishing expedition walks back, to driving to the next station, to buying some ammunition, to scavenging for fuel, to reaching the next chapter in a fictionalised history of remarkable events that seems now like the most obvious fit for a game ever. To make all this so fun and compelling without feeling tacky or overly sanitised is a remarkable achievement, and one I'm glad to recommend.
Embark on a desperate mission through the depths of a war-torn wasteland and unforgiving landscape of Siberia. Command a legion of soldiers desperately trying to make their way home amidst the chaos of civil war. Lead them through the unforgiving wilderness onboard an armored train.
The Last Train Home is a compelling narrative that portrays the experiences of the Czechoslovak Legion and their determination to return to their newly formed republic following The Great War. Caught in the middle of a brutal civil war between Russia's Red and White Armies, this mission will test your courage and will to survive.
As you journey through the heart of the conflict, the horrors of war will surround you. The fate of your legion rests on the actions of a few key soldiers as you engage in real-time battles that will determine the outcome of your mission. You must choose your tactics wisely, using every skill to safeguard your troops and complete your mission.
Pat, I would like to know the history of this song. I have been listening to your music for years. Unfortunately, I have not seen you in concert. This song is such a powerful song. I could listen to it forever. I get up in the morning to it. Need to know when you are in the Southern California area. Thanks for your time.
hi glen,
that tune certainly has had an interesting time of it. as sometimes happens, it came very quickly - i think it was written as one complete phrase, with the bridge coming at a later date.
one thing that is interesting about that tune from my perspective is that it probably one of the hardest, if not the hardest tune in our book to improvise on. we have other pieces like "heat of the day" that have these complex soloing forms or a piece like "lakes" that has more changes per bar and stuff. but "last train home" has a few qualities as a piece that demand an improvisation that at least approaches the detail of the melody itself - and in that particular case, it is not an easy thing to do night after night.
Last Train Home is a a documentary by Lixin Fan based on a husband and wife that are Chinese migrant workers. The story told revolves around how China is made up of a high percentage of migrant workers that travel home once a year to celebrate the Chinese New Year with their families. They leave their familiies to go get better work and to send money home. Many leave their children behind to be taken care of by other family members.
The beginning of the film shows the struggle that occurs each year when millions of Chinese workers try to catch a train to go back home for the Chinese New Year. The themes of family and culture are prevalent through the whole film. Chinese New Year is a cultural tradition in China that is spent with family. The migrant workers in the film look forward to this visit once a year so that they can see their children and their elders. The film depicts the reality of how Chinese families may be affected as a result of migrant work. This couple face a tremendous disconnect with their eldest daughter who was raised by her grandmother. The grandmother enforced education so that her granddaughter could be successful. The idea was that if she became successful her parents hard work would be worth it and in turn she couold take care of them later in their old age. I was able to make the connection with the idea of filial piety because obedience towards ones parents and elders is of the utmost importance in Chinese culture. The film shows the struggle between a daughtert and her parents and the disconnect that occurs because she feels abandoned due to their migrant work.
This documentary was an eye opener to the struggles and the dynamics that occur within a Chinese family. I can use this film in my class to talk about culture, migrant work, industries & cheap labor (factory work) amongst many other topics and ideas that connect with my curriculum.
I too watched Last Train home and found it a great resource to learn about the importance of family and traditions in Chinese culture. It's a great movie to learn more about a tradition that keeps getting bigger every year in the United States, the Chinese New Year, and to understand its massive importance in China. The scenes of the workers in their factories can be a bit hard sometimes as they paint a quite dismal picture. Still they are of great importance in order to better understand the life of migrant workers in modern industrial China. The scenes of the crowds and desperation of some people trying to secure a place to travel home can be very hard too, but they are necessary in order to help the western viewer understand the economic expansion of China and the massive migration from rural areas to the cities and industrial areas.
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