Theme Park Roller Coaster

"I personally had an EXTREME amount of fun with TPRC, and still do (end of summer 2007)"

I remember way back when I saw that computer theme park game that some of my friends used to have where you manage a theme park on the computer. I always thought, “man, this game would be so much friggin' better if its graphics were greatly improved, and the gameplay was tweaked”, and then I waited for a long time for that to happen. Well, welcome back to the theme park managing world of Theme Park Roller Coaster, produced by Electronic Arts and developed by Bullfrog Studios, where the graphics have been greatly improved and the gameplay has taken a step up, but is basically the same game with those two changes. Before I go into more detail, I just have to say, if you read some other reviews for this game, you'll notice that everyone can't help but completely hate the little ant-like tutorial guy, and its true. YOU CANT PLAY THIS GAME WITHOUT HATIN HIS FRIGGIN GUTS, but despite this minor annoyance, this game is in fact, a very playable a fun experience I can honestly say is like no other on the PS2.

Graphics: 8 – I know that a lot of people who review this game always slam the game for the same thing. “The graphics look not-so-good for a PS2 game”, but the arguable fact of the matter is that the game has great graphics for everything that's on screen at once. You can have 150 people plus on the screen at once, not to mention moving rides, go carts, custom roller coaster tracks, games, restaurants, bathrooms, and not to mention 20 members of your staff, but the game will run smooth as silk. The rides themselves consist of every ride you've ever been on, hopped up on steroids. The different themed parks make for very different and fun rides for you to build in the park. Personally, my favorite parks are the Halloween theme parks because the purple and orange themed things, creepy rides, and creepy music create such an atmosphere, it was like no other game I'd played before. One thing that really turned me on to this game was the fact that you could hit a button and suddenly be a person in the park and see the park from a visitor's first person view. Also what really made me want to buy this game was the fact that you could ride your own coasters and see the park wizz by as you pass at a furious speed. The unfortunate fact is that things may look great from up 200 feet in the air, but when several feet away from something, pointed polygonal edges begin to rear their ugly heads, and textures begin to look muddy and blurry. Not to mention when you ride a roller coaster, other people, naturally, are on it with you, but sometimes, their big, fat, pointy heads block your view, which is always aggravating. Anyway, bottom of the line is that the game does look really good (up in the air), but at times, can be PS1-ish from up close. *8/10*

Sound: 9 – Now, I think this is where Theme Park Roller Coaster really shines. The theme park sounds like a real life theme park. There's always people screaming, laughing, crying, vomiting (if you have a sick enough coaster), and they even go “awwwwww…” when a ride breaks down, which makes a cartoon like springy explosion sound. Also, on a funnier note, when the camera is over an occupied bathroom, you hear a whole array of farting and other noises, and even moans of pain and relief. People's reactions are well heard throughout your park. Now there's another reason why the sound rating is so high on this game; the rides. The rides of Theme Park Roller Coaster all make unique and well-fitting sounds for the rides. The monkey rides sound like monkeys and mechanical workings and the dinosaur rides sound like roaring dinosaurs with mechanical workings. The Halloween rides sound like many things for example, manical laughter, moaning, loud sudden bangs, and flapping bat wings, also accompanied by mechanical workings. And the space parks have especially good sound with various lazers, light shows, buzzing rides, and, as you guessed it, it's accompanied by mechanical workings. But my favorite is the roller coasters carts wizzing by from left to right and you hear that loud roller coaster sound (it sounds especially good if you have a 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound system, and first, the left side of the room shakes, then both, then just the right side as the cart goes flying by on the track). Accompanying all these great sounds are the small sounds of cha-ching! every time something is purchased, plates and silverware clanging together at restaurants, buzzing and beeping at carnival games (and sometimes the moaning of sore losers), and that glorious sound that goes off when you get a golden ticket, which I'll tell you about in the gameplay section. Now, you may be thinking, “hey, if the sound is so great, then why don't you give it a ten instead of a nine?” Well, I'll tell you my friend, as I stated earlier in the introduction, there's that little ant-like tutorial guy who pops up every two seconds to tell you what your doing wrong, and it's EXTREMELY annoying, more annoying than anything you've ever encountered in video games before. Believe me, in the beginning, he's actually sort of helpful, but after you've got the basic technique down, he's just unbearable. That's right, a little thing like a tutorial guy brings down the whole sound score by a point. *9/10*

Story: NONE – If there was even any attempt at a story for this game, I didn't see it. Actually, I don't really see how they could have implemented one into this game… I guess it would have to be you got a lot of money somehow and you want to become a theme park enthusiast and build your own theme parks, but then again, I just made that up because I think that's the only thing even close to being a reasonable explanation for the “story” of Theme Park Roller Coaster”… This game probably shouldn't have a story rating… You can't rate a story that doesn't exist, right? *NONE*

Multiplayer: NONE – Once again, you can't rate multiplayer that doesn't exist right? (Although it would have been cool to visit other people's theme parks online…) *NONE*

Gameplay: 9 – If I had to say one thing about this games gameplay, I would have to say FAST. There is always something to do. There is always something to research, something to build, something to fix, someone to hire, a workers strike to negotiate, ticket prices to be tweaked, food and drink costs to be tweaked, game prices to be adjusted, and an awesome coaster to build. And another thing about this game is that surprisingly, you have to be VERY strategic. Putting food and drink in one area won't get people fed when there's 1000 people + over the park, so you have to spread out either a couple of food areas, or randomly but evenly place food and drink stands all over the park. Putting one area of bathroom isn't gonna get everyone…uhhh… ready for more food, so it is very smart to put little stalls everywhere, and big bathroom buildings next to popular rides, so people know where they are. Also, if you have a ride that never gets much use, its good to demolish it and rebuild it as close to a main attraction as possible, that way, people will go on that ride if the main ride has a way-to-long line to wait in. People will actually leave before they enter your park if your ticket price is too high and the overall reaction from the crowd will be unhappy. People will also leave your park if your prices for food and games are sky high, or there's not enough food, drink, or bathroom buildings. And as always, people don't want to ride the same old rides, eat the same old food, and buy the same old souvenirs over and over again, so you will have to hire a team of researchers to spice up old rides and think up new ones, and believe me, the results can be great. After all of these details are decided, there's only that one thing left to do… build your awesome roller coaster. Roller coaster building was obviously one of the biggest selling points of this game, but it plays out a little differently than some people might expect. To begin, you have to have a central hub, where people get on and off the coaster. The track then exits out the right side of the hub and you start putting down pylons (pylons are those steel towers that hold the track up). You have a limited number of pylons to begin with, and you can only put pylons on stable ground, or on highlighted blue spaces. Your coaster is rated at the end by what its maximum speed is, angle of drops, and duration, and it's the most satisfying thing in this game to get an “awesome” rated coaster (most of mine end up getting labeled “boring”). Also, you don't just pick themes to build a park as. At first you're limited to one dinosaur park, but as u succeed in that park, you get what I mentioned before, Golden Tickets. Golden Tickets, acquired from doing things correctly and succeeding in parks allows you to purchase other parks with those tickets, therefore making you succeed before passing to the “next round”. The only reasons I didn't give this part a ten is that all of the things you have to do sometimes get overwhelming with a big park, and then when the park starts to fail, and you can't do anything about it, it feels like an overwhelming failure when your park goes bankrupt. : ( The second reason is that sometimes, the controls are confusing and you get them mixed up in your head, which leads to hitting the wrong button, which leads to accidentally deleting rides. Oops. *9/10*

Controls: 8 – This is an honest opinion from the bottom of my heart… the controls are so confusing, its weird. It's like, the buttons are placed the best way they possibly could be, and yet when you play, you forget what button does what. With first person shooters, you can quickly memorize what the buttons do, and then in five minutes, you could play without ever looking at the controller again. Not with Theme Park Roller Coaster. I am usually the guy the who memorizes controls instantly, but I've had this game for YEARS now, and I still can't play without occasionally pausing and looking at the controls. The only reason this gets an eight instead of a seven is because even though you forget where they are, if you look at the PS2 controller and think about it, you wouldn't change any of the well placed controls. *8/10*
Replay Value: 5 – This is where we face the facts. This game is very long. Each park takes a very long time to build up (hours upon hours) and have as a success story. But here's the truth. After climbing all those mountains and finally getting to the other side and completing the game, you really don't want to have to do it again. I am an avid fan of this game, but still, I only play the parks I've already made and improve upon them, I don't really plan on deleting them and doing it all over again. This game is a lot of work, and doing it all again would be like laying bricks down one by one to build your own house. When your finished, you really like it, and you can always improve, but why in hell would you want to tear it down and start over? That's how I see it. But that doesn't mean there aren't people would eventually want a fresh start. It would probably take a long time, but also probably end up rewarding in the end. *5/10*

So, there you go. My review for Theme Park Roller Coaster, developed by Bullfrog Studios and produced by Electronic Arts. My overall take on this game was that it was supposed to be something that was detailed, fun, fast, rewarding, but only really good for one play through. But playing five to ten hours on each park and making sure that it was a success was probably the reason why Bullfrog didn't make any incentive to play again, like extras (rides from Halloween park in Dinosaur park or something like that). Maybe they thought no one would beat the game, but just keep on building up the parks. Who knows? Here's my final thought on my extremely long review on Theme Park Roller Coaster. If you see it in a store, buy it, because you won't find it again, and it will probably not be that expensive, but will keep you entertained for years to come like it has for me.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/14/07

Game Release: Theme Park Roller Coaster (US, 12/04/00)