You see the title "RollerCoaster Tycoon" and think of only building good rollercoasters right? Think again! Not only do you have to build great rides, but you also must keep a full park running. Are your guests happy? Did you put the snack stand to close to a spinning ride, and now you have a bunch of people getting off the ride and then throwing up? Have you made sure the que lines aren't to long for a popular ride so everyone doesn't get tired of standing in line?

RollerCoaster Tycoon is for anyone who wants to run a theme park without the real life hassles. It's very addicting and I've spent many hours playing when I should have been doing other things.

When you start up the game you're able to choose from quite a few different "scenarios" which each have different land areas to build on. Some have rides pre-built and some are nothing but a big area of land. The scenarios have different goals such as get 1,000 guests in the park by June 30th, or pay back your loan for the park by a certain date, etc...

At first I was kind of confused by all the buttons and different options for ride types, themeing, walkways, and how to actually build things in the game. I highly suggest reading the full manual before playing to get a better idea of how to play. There is also a button you can pick when you start RollerCoaster Tycoon that takes you though a tutorial and shows how to build a coaster or ride and put down new paths to those rides.

Once I understood how to play it was very fun! I can't believe all the different things there is to watch in the park and to do. Every ride has it's own control window that lets you change options, such as price to ride, color of the track, number of trains, etc... There is also an important part which is the "Intensity, Excitement, and Nausea" ratings. They are numbers you have to pay close attention to because they show if the ride will be popular for the guests. Such as if you have to high of intensity rating and a low excitement rating not many people will ride. Really high nausea rating could cause problems to making guests get sick easier.

It might sound like a lot of work but adjusting the coasters and rides to get the best ratings and most people on them is a great challenge and again, very addicting.

Food shops, bathrooms, and souvenir stands also can be built just as a normal real life theme park would have. Guests getting lost in the park to fast? Make sure to build more information booths that have park maps. Want to make extra profit when it rains? Build shops that sell umbrellas and raise the price if there is bad weather... but don't raise prices to high or the guests will complain they can't afford it.

You might be wondering how I could tell what each guest is thinking in the park. Well, there is a "guests" icon to click on that brings up a full list of every single person in the park and says what he (can't tell if there are girls or not in the game) is doing. I like this feature because it allows you to sort the list by what ride the guests are on, how many guests are happy or mad, or what they are doing in your park. Guests can be clicked on though that list, or just by pointing your mouse arrow over them in the game that brings up a guest information window. Kind of like the ride info thing except it shows different info about the certain person you clicked on. How much money they have, what rides they've gone on, are they happy, do they need to go to the bathroom, are they hungry, and a few others.

The great detail is what keeps me 'hooked' on RollerCoaster Tycoon. Being able to see all the people walking around your park, and all the coasters or rides going around and around is pretty fun. An added bonus is when you reach a goal of one of the scenarios another new one will open for you to play. At the end of the game there is a huge "Mega Park" which is opened by winning all the scenarios. The little guests in your park also look up and clap when you win each scenario to.

I can't really think of too much that I don't like about the game besides just a couple of things...

*There is no 'free-play' mode. In other words you must play though a scenario you pick and might be limited on the amount of money to spend. However, you can still play the scenario as long as you want even if you have passed the goal date.

*The sound can get a little repetitive hearing the same screams or crowd’s noise over and over.

*You can't actually ride the rides (from a guests point of view) since it's not a full 3D game. The game creator, Chris Sawyer, explained though that he made it like this to allow more options and scenery in the game, plus he said it was hard to combine to many things into a full 3D game with the limitations of graphics cards and he wanted to make the game playable to a wide number of people.

Those "cons" listed really aren't that big of deal and don't take away from game play. I can't believe sometimes when I sit down to play RollerCoaster Tycoon and all of the sudden look at the clock and see quite a few hours have passed even though it feels like I've only played for 5 minutes.

I highly recommend this game to everyone! The whole family can play since there isn't violence or graphic things in the game. Only 'bad' thing that can happen is if a roller coaster crashes it explodes and then a message at the bottom of the screen says how many people died in the accident.

Now anyone can sit back at home or work and run a whole amusement park!

-Wes
Wesley815

Recommended: Yes