You are the owner/manager of a theme park. You must decide what to charge for
admissions, which rides to build (and where to put them), how much staff to
hire, and more. Your decisions affect your profits, as you must entertain the
most people possible and keep them interested enough to stay and spend their
money.
The major attraction in amusement parks is, of course, the rides.
RollerCoaster Tycoon has plenty to choose from - and if you don't like the
default designs, you can make your own. This is a thoroughly enjoyable facet of
the game. You can design the tracks for your roller coasters, adding dips,
banks, loops, tunnels, and more.
The graphics are colorful and fun - just the way they should be for a game of
this type. Your customers appear a bit cartoonish, but it's all part of the fun
of the game. The rides, attractions, and other park amenities are quite
attractive
RollerCoaster Tycoon is a lot of fun to play. Designing your own roller
coaster is a hoot, and you feel a certain amount of exhilaration as you watch
the cars race along your track for the first time. Ride design does require a
bit of skill, though, as you need to make sure that the cars can make it around
the track without crashing or running out of momentum. You can't go too wild
either, or your park patrons will take one look at your coaster and leave. They
prefer to hold on to that lunch you sold them...
The game also does a good job of keeping the park management aspect from
bogging the player down. While there is a fair amount of strategy in placing
rides, setting admissions, etc., you won't spend all of your time micromanaging
the park. The interface is easy to use, giving you quick access to all the
settings you'll need to adjust while running the park.
You have a fair amount of control over the look and design of your rides, but
if you prefer to avoid designing them, the game provides plenty of pre-designed
ones. You can also download ride designs from the internet as well. This will
leave you more time to manage your park or just sit back and watch the action.
Speaking of sitting back and watching the action, there is one big
shortcoming to the game - the lack of an option to speed gameplay. There are
times in the game where you will need to just sit and wait for additional
revenue to roll in. However, your park will continue to hum along at the default
speed, forcing you to just wait it out. This is an issue in some of the earlier
scenarios provided with the game, when you may reach the scenario's goals early
on, but have to wait for the timer to run out before you can move on to the
next.
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 92%.
A delightfully fun game to play, but in need of a time accelerator.
System Requirements: Pentium 90; 16 MB RAM; SVGA Video Card; 4x
CD-ROM; 50 MB Hard Drive Space; Mouse.
