merlot's Full Review: Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 (Platinum) for Windows
Several months ago I had downloaded a trial version of Roller Coaster Tycoon and quickly became addicted to building my own theme parks. Little did I know, my brother was already addicted to this game. One afternoon while he was visiting he noticed the park I was building and the trouble I was having as I was just learning the game. He said "Your park sucks!" I took that as a challenge to show him I could build an awesome park.
In order to do that I convinced myself that I need to add to my Roller Coaster Tycoon game collection by getting Loopy Landscapes. Loopy Landscapes is an Expansion Pack which includes the previous expansion pack, Corkscrew Follies. The expansion packs add more excitement to your Roller Coaster Tycoon software.
First some background on Roller Coaster Tycoon. Roller Coaster Tycoon is a simulation type game which has been around for a few years, I am always a few years behind the times, LOL. Roller Coaster Tycoon allows you to build theme parks, not just Roller Coasters. If you are addicted to Roller Coaster Tycoon then you will definitely want to add the Loopy Landscapes Expansion Pack.
Loopy Landscapes is awesome! When I first got it I played for about 5 minutes before calling my friend and telling her "You have got to get this!" It allows you to add more scenery, more attractions, and more fun to your park.
When you have Roller Coaster Tycoon you have the ability to build theme parks with several different rides, scenarios, attractions, and entertainers. When you add Loopy Landscapes you open up the ability to build even better theme parks.
The great thing is that the Loopy Landscapes Expansion pack also includes Corkscrew Follies so you get 2 expansion packs. These allow you to add:
•New Themes: There are different themes available (like Jungle and Scary themes) that allow you to customize areas of your park. One thing I love is the Scary theme. With this them I can decorate the Haunted House area of my park and get more people to go in the Haunted House, which is usally a dud of an attraction. I can add a skeleton, some headstones, and scary looking trees and people will flock to my ride.
•New Scenarios: With these 2 Expansions you get new parks. Each time you complete a park (completing the objective given in the given time frame) another scenario will open up. I have found the Loopy Landscapes scenarios to be quite fun, while the Corkscrew Follies ones seem more challenging to me.
•New Roller Coasters: Roller Coaster Tycoon has several roller coasters available but these two expansion packs give you even more. The roller coasters are a little more thrilling.
•New Attractions: Attractions are rides, ride enhancements, stalls, and shops. I love that there are more shops and attractions that I can add to make my park more exciting.
•New Landscaping Items: I love the additional landscaping items that you get with Loopy Landscapes. I can make my lines more colorful. I can customize the entrances to rides to have tents, jungle themed entrances, or other things. It makes it more exciting for the guests.
•New Entertainers: In Roller Coaster Tycoon you are given three entertainers to roam your park...a Tiger, an Elephant, and a Panda Bear. With the expansion pack you get a Gorilla, Medieval characters, and many others. It keeps your guests happy when their are more entertainers to delight them.
One of the other features that you get with Loopy Landscaping is the ability to set your pricing. You can open a Balloon Stall and then check a box so that balloon prices will be the same at all balloon stalls throughout the park. This is convenient because you can click on one balloon stall and change the price for all of them in one easy step. This works with all the shops/stalls.
You also now have the ability to erect banner signs. This keeps people from getting lost in your park, which was a huge problem for me when my brother instituted this whole game challenge. I would have people on paths they didn't need to be on. Now I can erect a sign that tells them do not enter and they won't.
Installing Loopy Landscapes is quite simple. You just insert it into your CD-Rom drive and it self installs. You will need the CD in your drive in order to run the game.
The one thing I don't like and this was the case with Roller Coaster Tycoon as well is that you can save your games, but if you get a new computer or need to re-install the software, you will lose those saved games. When we had to re-install the software I lost several of my saved parks and had to start over at the beginning. This was a big pain because in the beginning you only have a few scenarios to choose from. As you progress and complete scenarios more open up for you, to lose all of those just bites!
If you love Roller Coaster Tycoon you simply must invest the $20 (although I have seen it for $10 recently) in the Loopy Landscapes expansion pack. It will open up a whole different level of theme park building for you.
Because it adds at least 30 more games to your existing games it provides many more hours of fun. I don't seem to get bored with this game because there are so many different scenarios and some of them are quite challenging.
I highly recommend the Loopy Landscapes Expansion Pack to anyone who loves Roller Coaster Tycoon. And if you don't have Roller Coaster Tycoon...I recommend you get that!
To run Loopy Landscapes you will need:
90 MHz Pentium (they recommend at 200 MHz)
Windows 95/98 (or newer)
16 MB RAM
4X speed (or faster) CD-ROM drive
Minimum of 45MB storage on your hard drive
SVGA quality graphic capability
Video card must have 1MB onboard memory
Working Mouse
DirectX version 5.0
Working sound card
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