RollerCoaster Tycoon 3

The Tycoon franchise has been around for years now (over about ten) and has seen gamers create rail services in the likes of RailRoad Tycoon and different kinds of transport such as buses in Transport Tycoon. However, more recently the franchise has been about Rollercoaster/Theme Park building games in the form of RollerCoaster Tycoon. After two isometric 3D games in this third instalment of the series, RollerCoaster Tycoon has finally gone full 3D, making it all the more immersive, adding a lot to the character detail and allowing you to ride the coasters via the new 'coaster cam'. Now, if all of that sounds familiar it is probably because Theme Park went 3D a few years back with Theme Park World. However, Theme Park World only had four parks to play through and a black dot with a Scottish accent knew more about playing the game then you.

For RollerCoaster Tycoon's first 3D outing developers Frontier have done a great job keeping system requirements as low as possible using low polygon models as there are hundreds on screen at once. The real fun begins when you actually try building a park, each tile of a ride must be placed on the field one at a time. It is good then, that they have included an excellent tutorial mode, that gives you step by step instructions on building your theme park, park management and helps you master the camera controls. The rest of the menu options consist of Career mode in which you play through park after park while meeting various goals. Next, there is Sandbox mode, in which players can create parks without having to meet any specific goals and gives you an unlimited amount of cash.

The option menus include extensive options, ranging from the type of currency used in the game to changing the way temperature is measured. There are ten different currencies to choose from in total, from the New Zealand dollar to the UK Pound. There are also options for players to have their mp3 files playing in the background. Change the way temperature is measured; in either Celsius or Fahrenheit, while distance and speed can be measured in Metric, Imperial or SI.

The tools menu is where the mod developers will get the most fun, it features a visitor designer or 'peep designer' where you edit the little people that come to your park, a building designer for editing buildings, a scenario editor in which players create their own goals to play for and a coaster designer where players can design coasters.

The basic gameplay hasn't changed much from the past RollerCoaster Tycoons; It still revolves around managing funds in the selected currency, keeping the visitors happy by increasing or decreasing the excitement level of the coasters, Levelling ground for building rides, hiring and firing staff, and pleasing the VIP's that visit occasionally. However, there is the new 'coaster cam' feature that allows you to ride the RollerCoaster you just built in this addition to the series. In terms of staff management, you have to keep an eye on staff numbers, because if they get too low things can get out of hand, for example; if you don't have janitors then the vomit on the ground - something inherent with rollercoasters - will start to build up.

The aforementioned VIP's are named in a humorous fashion for example; there is 'Clint Bushton', a politician whose name just happens to look like a combination of Clinton and Bush. Apart from him there is also a teen idol called 'Kari Oki', an actor called Cami O, a Sports Celebrity called Joe Sluggerball and the park inspector Mr. Jobsworth. Some mission objectives require you to host these people, so it is important to know how to please them. The different VIP's have different tastes to meet. Kari Oki for instance, likes fast roller coasters so having a roller coaster with a high excitement level is a good idea.

Depending on your system, graphics are reasonable for the scale of this type of game and the number of people on screen at a time. The trees and people are all in 3D; however, there are some cases of clipping where people pass straight through each other. That said, graphics are not the most important aspect of this kind of game and it is easy to over look them due to the sheer addictiveness of the gameplay.

The ability to add your mp3s for new background music is a feature more PC game developers should adopt if possible, the developer of this game has clearly seen the advantages of custom soundtracks used in Xbox games where gamers may not necessarily like the default music re: Dead or Alive: Xtreme beach volleyball.

System Requirements -
Operating System: Windows 98/Me/2000/XP (Windows XP recommended)
Processor: Pentium III 733 MHz or compatible
Memory: 128 MB RAM; 256 MB for XP
Hard Disk Space: 600 MB free
CD–ROM Drive: 4X or faster
Video: 32 MB video card with hardware T&L support, such as the ATI Radeon or GeForce 2
Sound: Windows 98/Me/2000/XP–compatible 16–bit sound card
DirectX: DirectX version 9.0
Other: Barf bag