Sim Theme Park

"Hey this ain't that bad!"

Well okay since I gave the game a score of six, you may think that I think it's bad. The truth is that this game is actually good in many ways. The detail is awesome and plus it's 3D so you have to give them some credit for boosting up the graphics. Gameplay was okay but then again sometimes gets buggy even on average computers and yes it does freeze up sometimes.

GFX = 8
To me, I thought the graphics in Sim Theme Park were superb! The attention to detail was quite excellent and they did the designs of the parks pretty well! It's really cool how you can see the little children and your park mascots walking around in the park. Also, with one click of a button, you can transform into a park visitor and go into first person view and move around. This gives you a sense of what the park visitors feel when they're at your park. You can even ride the rollercoasters and probably every ride that you put into your park. This is why I give the GFX an 8/10.

Gameplay = 4
Okay this where the creators could've improved upon the game a little bit more. The parks were designed wonderfully but for me, they were a little too big. Since they were big, if you have a lot of rides all spread out in your park, it will be slow and buggy at times when you're moving from one point to another. I didn't like it that much when that happened. Plus, sometimes during the game, I was in first person view mode and riding a roller coaster but then it froze on me!!! I had to restart my computer due to the whole fiasco. The rides were made well too and I especially liked how non-complex it was to buy and sell stuff and employees. When theres trash trouble in the park though, it's kind of a hassle to bring your janitor there to clean it up.

Story = 6
I didn't give this more or less than it deserved. Partly because simulation games don't have much of a storyline. This one sort of did though...; you collect golden tickets once you max out the stats of your park and make enough money and get enough visitors. When you recieve these tickets, you can open up the gates to all new park themes like Space World and Halloween World. Each one is different and has special rides not available in the other parks. That was pretty cool so that you wouldn't get bored of the game too easily.

Challenge = 6
I gave this a six because it wasn't quite hard to get all the golden tickets/keys and since my little brother can beat the game. Sometimes it was tough to do the janitorial and fixing jobs on the park. Other than that it was pretty simple...

Internet Gameplay = 6
They finally decided to put a Sims game on the internet but I think it should've had more functionality. The only thing you can do is submit your best park to their server and go play in other people-designed parks. It got boring very quickly because basically what they can do is the same thing that you can do. They should've put a chat feature and let you have like a plethora of people going into the parks at the same time and talking to each other you know? It just would've been cooler!

Overall = 6
Yeah I may be a hard grader but this is my opinion you know? LOL! Since this is a PC game I doubt that you can rent it but you could borrow it from a friend or get it real cheap nowadays in stores. If you want, you can even get the PS version. IMHO the PS version is better and more stable. I don't recommend a buy because renting this will be all that it's worth! If you want some fun theme park action, then a better game is the Roller Coaster Tycoon series. But it's always the consumer's choice.Bye now!

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 11/21/02, Updated 11/21/02