Car Tycoon

by Fishtank Interactive

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005Q5GX
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: January 7, 2002
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #37,531 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Seize power in the automobile industry. Car Tycoon is a business simulation set in the United States between the years 1950 and 2006. Relive the booming '50s as the boss of a company. You are responsible for the development, production, and sales of your cars, and for holding your ground against the competition. Your goal will be to wipe the floor with your competition economically and take control of the market in 40 different scenarios, each presenting varied challenges. Build up a brand name and a company structure or use a little sabotage or industrial espionage. Just make sure you stay on top of your manufacturing empire.

Product Description

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Car Tycoon Fails to Satisfy, January 15, 2002

By 

Kevin Forth (Detroit, MI, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Car Tycoon (CD-ROM)

This new release, developed by VectorCom Development and distributed through Fishtank Interactive, puts the user in the driver's seat of an automobile company. The goal, of course, is to beat your competitors at the game of building and selling cars. While many auto buffs would find such a simulation exciting, the buggy Car Tycoon is not yet ready for prime time. I've found a downloadable patch for the German language version, but none yet for the English version.

First, this game takes eons to start and load. I tested the game on a 1 Ghz machine with 256 MB of RAM, and this game took several minutes to load from the start. Once under way, performance was acceptable.

The game provides a tutorial mode to allow first-time users an interactive way to learn the game's operation. While that feature is helpful, I found it difficult to turn off the tutorial mode, even after successfully completing the tutorial's steps. During the game, a few program errors occurred and revealed the game's German heritage with Deutch-flavored error messages that were unreadable, at least to this English-speaking car fanatic.

After a few hours of play, the game's more serious flaws began to show. For example, the car models that I stopped producing would occasionally still show as being sold at a few dealerships, even if the dealer's stock was zero. Since a dealership can only sell from 2 to 4 vehicle models, this reduced the dealership's ability to stock new models. That annoyance alone makes the game frustrating to play, and makes one wonder how much testing occurred before declaring this product ready for market. In other cases, saved games couldn't be reloaded, creating more frustration.

The game's brief documentation is filled with misspellings and grammatically errors, which I assume were introduced when translating the text from German. While this doesn't create a big problem, it casts an unprofessional shadow on the product. Also, Fishtank's web site is nearly useless, providing no support information for the product.

If you're looking for a simulation of the auto industry, this doesn't come close. In the U.S., the manufacturers don't own the dealerships. This game has you bidding for new dealerships via an auction, and those dealerships can only stock a few different models. There are no decent reports available that compare you to your competitors, such as sales reports, percentage of market share, comparative financial statements, etc. The only feedback that comes close is a window that tells you the quantities of vehicles registered in a single city.

Oddly, the game's designers chose a SimCity-style town layout for the simulation, which is the game's biggest weakness. You sell vehicles in a city or two, and that's it. Not much fun, and certainly not realistic. A country map or globe would have been more realistic.

Once you master the game, which doesn't take long, the fun wears thin. Since the demise of the old simulation "Detroit", I was hoping for a high-quality automotive industry simulation to hit the market. My wait continues.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better than everyone says it is, April 30, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Car Tycoon (CD-ROM)

I went and bought even though I had heard about how bad it was and how unstable it is. I was shocked when I finally got to playing the game. It's the funnest strategy games I've ever played. It's simple and fun to do. You can look at your dealerships, factories, and see what kind of people are buying your cars. The game hasn't frozen on me once! I've heard over and over again how people are mad that you can't make them certain colors. Think about it. Does the company really decide what colors are made? Not really. The consumer does. This is a great game! I am not disappointed!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What a disappointment!, February 13, 2002

By 

AC (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Car Tycoon (CD-ROM)

I had come up with this concept myself and was amazed when I found the game on the shelf of a computer store. FINALLY, I thought, THE GAME I WAS HOPING FOR! But what I found was a game that while good in concept is simply software filled with bugs. I couldn't get my computer with Win 98 to run it at all. I got it to work on a friend's computer with Win ME only to find that I had to go through the intro movie each time (no option to skip), the rules are unnecessarily complicated, it seems nearly impossible to win the game no matter what level you start at, and much of the game is very amateurish. Also, the game maker's web site is no help at all and parts were not even up when the game was released.

The real disappointment is that while I was waiting for a auto tycoon type sim game for a long time, when it finally came out it was just a big mess. I'm hoping a more reputable company will come out with a similar game in the near future. Save your money, avoid the aggravation, and do not buy this game.