Customer Reviews

Thrillville: Off the Rails

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

As a 14 year old I got the game and the concept of being able to run around your park and ride the rides and play the games sounded like a really neat concept unfortunately i was terribly dissapointed. Firstly one of the main problems with the game is that managing your park requires no work at all, all there is to the game is playing the minigames and the roleplaying aspect of it. Unlike other similarly based games such as rollercoaster tycoon, this game provides no challenge in making your park a success, you dont need to manage your finances, you dont need to maintain guest happyness and you dont need to manage your staff in any way at all. The financial part of the game is terribly easy because without even trying you make money, even if you were trying to make your park a complete faliure i dont think it would be possible unless you made all your attractions free. It doesnt matter if your guests are happy or not because THERE IS NO EXIT TO THE PARK! and the number of guests in the park doesnt matter anyhow. and managing the staff doesnt matter because like i said the guest happyness doesnt matter, and rides hardly ever break down.
Besides the park manager part of the game there are severe limitations to the parks, each park has three areas in it, in each area you can make 2 rollercoasters at the pre determined rollercoaster locations, and each area has two small areas where you can build other attractions, the parks start with rides and coasters in them, and you cant remove any of the large annoying scenery to make more room for your park and rides, there is no way to buy more space which really makes little sense, and the whole game is not about running a park, its about "thwarting globo-joy".
Then there are problems with the game itself, firstly many of the "minigames you can play are either no fun, or dont work properly" also the keypress recognition is terrible! I could press the spacebar twenty times to open the menu without a single thing happening! As you can probably imagine that makes the games worth playing a lot harder to play.
then there is the "off the rails" aspect. Supposedly you can make the rollercoasters do jumps, well if you can i certainly havent been able to. Also one of the things that was going to make this game interesting for me was that you could just let the track end and send the coasters flying into the crowds and make a huge explosion(when you are a 14 year old boy that is a large part of the appeal) unfortunately i found that when you make a coaster whos track doesnt end, all the people are ejected out of the coaster, magically sprout propellers, and float gently to the ground. Meanwhile the car of the rollercoaster has some how appeared back at the launching station insted of ploughing into the crowds. Also the coasters have no physics applying to them, none of them have lift hills, they are just "launched" up a 500ft vertical track (as if thats going to happen on a real roller coaster) despite what i do to try and make these coasters not have enough speed to get up a hill and start rolling backwards into the next train (this was my next attempt to cause some explosions) but amazingly in thrillville there is no such thing as physics. miraculously the rollercoaster went up an 80 degree hill that went about 100 feet high at around 2MPH! who comes up with this, seriously!


All in all i think the concept of the game is great! but the game itself is poorly designed, poorly executed, and the objectives and storyline need some serious help.

I have had many hours of fun playing this game. The graphics are lush, the rides impossible in the real world, how to progress in the game was made clear with the mission board's assistance. You don't build your own park like in Roller Coaster Tycoon- it's already done for you complete in layout and scenery- that was a bit disappointing to me. I was expecting a little more hands on in that area. The game's mission was a mystery which unfolded as you complete the game missions. Your park guests interact with you (I chose to be the Park Manager)some are people and some are robots, they help you complete your missions. My only difficulty with the game, which is not the game's fault, is that I stink at some of the aspects required to complete the game's missions; mainly the mini games-don't get me wrong they are great fun-I just happen to be 'challenged' by this type of game play and cannot complete many of the missions without my 11 year old son's help, which was not a bad thing since he was happy to help me and we spent some time gaming together. He had fun showing off his skills and I had fun watching how good he is at it. In the future I would like to see game aspect of this one married to the RCT thrill of building your own park from scratch- but I think that's a little too big of an expectation right now. Overall I give the game 3.5 stars.

THIS GAME IS SUPER FUN. Thrillville has alsome graphics and the music played through out the game is groovy. The negative part of the game is how much memory it takes and how much it costs. other wise this game is super fun to own and is worth the money. I recomned this game to teenagers and up their are some little things that wouldn't be very good for younger children such as kissing and hugging. For doing the game you can flirt with hot girls or cute boys. And when you do this they give you the chose in kissing. because you are tring to become sweat hearts. I would totally recomned this game for it is really fun I think this game is fun.



Apple

Thrillville Off the Rails is so much fun! I think this game rocks. The graphics are so cool and the music is great. I love this game because you can build paint and manage all your rides! Also you can talk to your customers and flirt with the cute boys or girls. Also you can crash roller coasters and ride them. You even get to design a character for yourself. THis game is so much fun I would recomened it to all kids and maybe adults!

Apple

This is a PC DVD game. We have a Dell Latitude that has played all the PC games (CD ROM) we've bought except this one. When loaded, the drive was unable to read it and either stoped without recognizing the disk, or ejected it. We discovered that our DVD player was not working and needed to be replaced. After replacing the DVD/CD drive the game played, albeit slowly (could be our computer speed). My 10 yr old son seems happy with it and has played all the levels.

Update 07172011

Game installs and works perfectly on Windows 7. My problem was with the catalyst control center not being compatible with many games.

If you are runnning windows 7 don't buy this game.
Here is the response I got from Lucas Arts.
Hello,


Please note that the program is not tested or supported in Windows 7. You *may* be able to run the program using compatibility mode in Windows 7, but we cannot guarantee the program will function properly in this new operating system.

Program compatibility is a mode in Windows that lets you run programs written for earlier versions of Windows. Most programs written for Windows XP also work in this version of Windows, but some older programs might run poorly or not run at all. If an older program doesn't run correctly, start the Program Compatibility Wizard to simulate earlier versions of Windows.

When I got this game a few years ago, I bought it expecting a big vavoom, but I didn't get that. Though the game doesn't absolutely suck, it certainly is a big disappointment to those expecting better. The graphics are just okay, the gameplay gets pretty boring, and there's not very much substance to it.
The ability to talk to people and make friends isn't that great, especially when the only way to make friends is to pick one of a few subjects available and find out if they absolutely hate what you're talking about or are interested. Now the even crazier thing is the ability to have a girlfriend or boyfriend by flirting! Maybe other people would find this fun, but I don't.
The objective to the game is basically to build a ride somewhere where people will spend money on it, whether it's a rollercoaster or a prefab ride and appeal to any celebrities within the park. You play the game in third person, playing as a customized character, running around, listening to a wacky old man spit out orders.
Finally, you have the minigames. Most of these games are cheesy and a waste of time.
Don't waste your money! If you haven't already, buy a game like Rollercoaster Tycoon 3. Thrillville O.T.R. aims to a younger audience, maybe even an older audience(doubtful) but it sure didn't aim to me

Fun and immersive, however, there is a lot about this game that is not intuitive. Also, the vantage can cause a bit of motion sickness now and then as well as being oversensitive which hinders play in some of the mini games. I think that it would be better gamed on a console format than PC.

I rented this game from our local library, and I saw it adveritised on TV and thought I'd give it a try. I was surprised on how fun, addicting, and even challenging this game is! I will only rate this 4 overall just because it's frustrating when you don't have enough money or don't have enough room to build your coaster or your arcade,etc. but it's truly addicting! You start off with a tutorial and you help this wacky scientist build his amusement park, as you can communictae with guests of the park and you can try to make friend with them! I will just let you know that some ways this game may not be for kids(although it's geared towards kids) as it has some lyrics, violence, and even occasional romance that may be disturbing to really young gamers. I'd rate it ages 8+. It's a really fun game as you can choose what roller coaster you want to build, then you make it your own way(you can put a ring of fire,brick wall, curves, turns, loops,etc.) and can build your own mini golf course(You can put windmills, Curves, and all sorts of things to design your MGC) and you can putt-putt at your customized mini golf course your ride your roller coaster! There are tons of mini games such as Go Cart(You can customize the track), Robot wars(Fun!), and even play bumper cars! It has lots of carnival, amusement park, type of games! And you can challenge park guests to mini games as well! THere are at least 10 different "Lands" that you can explore and you can unlock, and it has several different themes to it too! YOu can customize your charachter, play mini games, unlock trophies, and much more!I am even considering buying this game sometime! 5 stars!

Thrillvile is a great roller coaster theme park game that is so much fun! The graphics are great if you have a computer with alot of memory. You barely have to do any work as in cleaning, or fixing things (that's what the staff is for) but you get to hang out all day on the park riding, eating and just having fun. People say this game is less fun than roller coaster tycoon but that is so false. roller coaster tycoon I found to be pretty complicated to work. You don't get to interact with the customers like flirt or just make friends. But on Thrillville you can talk, compete and just play games! I would definently recomend this game to a person under the age of 13. But once you hit 14 or older I can see how if you want something that uses brain power this wouldn't be the game to choose. For you don't have to think very hard like in other coaster games. But if you are just in for playing arcade games and relaxing this game is totally for you! It is fun!!!


APple