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Overall, the look and feel of the game remains relatively the same. A 3D isometric overhead view allows players to build a theme park from scratch and carry it through pre-defined scenarios. These scenarios have conditions such as have a park rating of X by year Y or have X guests by year Y or build N coasters of type T with an excitement factor of X.
The game ships with about 25 scenarios that are grouped in categories of difficulty: easy, advanced, expert, and Real Parks. The website RollercoasterTyccon2.com promises to have future downloadable scenarios, and one major enhancement over the original game is the inclusion of a scenario editor. Players can now create their own parks/games and trade among friends. You can control all variables from size of park, weather, rides available for research and more.
The 'Real Parks' are actual Six Flag parks from around the world that are pretty close to real world counterparts. You can choose to just manage them or alter them at will.
Game enhancements:
1) Park sizes can be double that of the original game and it supports a much higher screen resolution rate.
2) Scenery: All the original scenery from the RCT and its expansions are present as well as new ones including: Pirate, Scary, Medieval, Gears, Wild West, Giant Gardens and more. There are also more fences, water themes, roofs and walls and the ability to stack scenery makes it much easier to create buildings.
3) New rides: Well obviously there are more coasters but also other attractions as well on top of all the originals.
4) Coaster and ride options: There seems to be much more customizations available for coasters including new car types, special banks, queue line options, supports, signs & banners, special track types and more.
5) New shops and stalls: Again, all the originals and more including sun glass hut, ATM's, First Aid station, more food choices.
6) More music options. Many more styles of music can accompany your rides.
7) Coaster construction: Tool here has been revamped and now you can make/test/save/see coasters better than ever.
Now not everything is perfect in this game:
1) Graphics: Even though the screen resolution and park size has increased, the view is still the same as is the graphics engine. While there is more 'eye-candy' per-se, the overall look is still cartoony and has some 'jaggy' issues. Not to mention that hills, waters, mountains still look slightly un-natural as it did in the original.
2) Lack of scenarios that ship. There are only 3 easy scenarios, a handful of advanced, and more expert. This may prove complex for players who never had the first. Hopefully new ones will be available from the official website soon.
3) No major innovations in game play. I'd like to see new objectives, or disasters to overcome, or new behaviors of park guests, mechanics, handymen, mascots...still the same.
The largest adjustment fans of the original will have to make is getting use to the new construction and customization tools. While they have been expanded (a large plus), they have also taken on new 'handling' characteristics which is proving somewhat confusing for me. For old players, it's retraining how to this new interface and sub-menus...lacking in the 1st game. While this new interface does seem to be much more rich and deep, I truly found it wasn't as intuitive as the RCT 1. I was looking for information that seemed to be present in the 1st game easily, now I have to dig to sub-menus I'm not familiar with.
These were some of the reasons I chose o give it 4 stars instead of 5. Something's are just better off simple, not overly complex.
I'd better stop now if I don't want to be writing the next volume of Encyclopedia Brittanica, but overall, this is the BEST game I've played yet. I HIGHLY recommend it.
To that end, RCT2 has two great features - the coaster designer and the scenario editor. I used the scenario editor last night, and I found it fun, though it did require me to refer to the instruction manual for guidance more than once. I could wish for a more intuitive design. I haven't used the coaster designer yet, but I am looking forward to streching my design wings this weekend.
Two other pluses are the amount of new rides and shops and the fact that all of the scenarios are immediately avaiable for play. Because of the aforementioned aversion to designing my own coasters, I had been shut out of many of the scenarios in the older version of the game because I hadn't finished the ride design scenarios. I'mm glad that won't happen here.
Positives aside, I do have a few gripes. First, it looks like many of the old coaster types are here, but, inexplicably, with different names. Users are left to try to figure out what their old standbys are now called. I'm still looking for the steel roller coaster (for the much-beloved shuttle-loop ride). It would have been nice if they had retained more consistency with the older version.
Also, the new scenery themes are underwhelming. I was excited about "giant garden," because I was picturing new and different, well, gardens. Instead there are giant bugs and carrots. Woo hoo. Other themes also seem rather perfunctory (the sports theme, which had great potential, is pretty lame).
Last, there seem to be fairly few scenarios, and even fewer that allow you to start a park from scratch. The Six Flags parks are interesting, but I don't enjoy finishing what someone else has started as much as making my own park.
Overall, a fun game, but first-time users might enjoy the original more.
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