"Theme Park begat Rollercoaster Tycoon begat Sim Theme Park..."

OPENING STATEMENT
Theme Park basically began this entire amusement park creation genre. I’m sure someone will e-mail me telling me that some game came first, but, realistically speaking, Theme Park came first. It is not the best, but first is first....

GAMEPLAY--8
Of all of the strategy games on the PlayStation that was adapted from the Personal Computer, I believe that Theme Park kept most of the original intact the best. You still have the wonderfully innovative system of gaining new rides and attractions as you go along. The order that you gain them in depends on the funding you supply each with. The rides and attractions all can be placed anywhere in your park. If you run out of room, fear not. You can buy some more land (at an exuberant fee) soon enough. There are enough features, none of which that are useless, that the game can take you months to completely master. Luckily, you do not have to completely master the game to have fun playing it.

GRAPHICS--7
Theme Park was one of the graphical showcases of the early days of the PlayStation. Mainly, it was because it is not grainy. It makes up for the lack of graininess though, in blockiness. Everything is at least a little bit blocky, but the blockiness varies with the locales. Basically, the larger the attraction, the more polygonal it looks and seems. This is an interesting annoyance that lowered the graphical rating substantially.

Everything is colored brightly, almost in pastels. This makes your theme park seem to be oriented for a younger audience than you really intended. The color choice was the other problem with this early graphical showcase.

MUSIC--6
SOUND--5
This was not, however, an early audio showcase for the PlayStation. The music is a little too annoying for my tastes. The sound effects are just plain bad. They are quite grainy, especially in contract negotiations. The music seems even kiddier than the pastels. If you have a six-year old in your family, they will adore the sounds coming from your television speakers. Everyone else in existence will not.

The sound is not all bad, and some of the sounds coming from the rides are genuinely hilarious. I do not think they were intended to be, but they ended up to be and Theme Park is better because of it.

CONTROL--8
Of all of the strategy PlayStation games that were ported from the PC, Theme Park kept its control interface the truest and easiest to use of all. Maybe, the PlayStation version is a little bit easier to control than the PC version. I commend the developers for this. All console strategy games should take a lesson from them. The buttons are all designed perfectly for their respective tasks to be the easiest possible to use.

FUN--8
This may not be the most fun strategy game genre, but it ranks right up there. Theme Park offers an excellent experience in a fairly large amount of rides. One great feature is the ability to ‘ride’ your rides as well as your passengers. The problem that I do not like is that, sometimes, if you have a really popular ride, and you get another, no one will go to that ride, even if you name it the NASCAR Racing Challenge. Try to figure out which ride of mine tanked!

CHALLENGE--MEDIUM TO HIGH
Theme Park is by far the most difficult of the amusement park trifecta. Negotiations are a pain and they take a lot out of your, and, even worse, it can be nearly impossible to keep your food orders filled. That, if anything, makes the game more strenuous and difficult, than any other one item.

REPLAY VALUE--MEDIUM
Even though it is a strategy game, Theme Park has a higher replay value than you think. The fact that different funding in different categories will reward you with different attractions at different rates is a big replay value plus. Another one, is that there are so many locales for your park to be in, each with different pricing, and a little bit different land. You will not play it as much as you would a game like Mario Party, but you will play it nonetheless.

CLOSING STATEMENT
Theme Park is still one of the better strategy games on the PlayStation. It actually has some features from both Real-Time strategy games and the amusement park sub-genre. Everything happens in real-time which adds to the feeling that it is a bit different from the previous time you played it.

OVERALL--7

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/26/00, Updated 07/18/01