Theme Park

"Even worse than the PC version... (and that one wasn't very good either!)"

As a fan of ''Sim'' games, I was naturally excited when I first found Theme Park sitting there in the store, oh so many years ago. I had always enjoyed going to Theme Parks, now was my chance to build my own! Sounded like fun! So I begged money from my parents, to be paid back later (5 years later, and I never paid!), and bought the game.

So I attempted, and failed, to install it. I couldn't understand why, my computer met all the minimum requirements listed on the box. Not to be discouraged, I tried it again, this time without sound. It worked! Who knows why. The game took forever to install, and was a general beast about it. I've never seen an install program that ran so slowly! It took forever just to get the arrow to move down from one option to another. And then I got to watch a handyman mow a lawn while the game installed. And installed. And so forth.

But the PC version turned out to be a disaster for me. The game ran slowly, had bugs, and gave me fits. But time marches on, and you tend to forget the problems, and remember the good times...

After the problems I had with the PC, I noticed that Bullfrog had made a PSX version of Theme Park, so I plunked down my $20, and bought it.

Once into the game itself, the first thing I noticed is how bright and cheery this game is. The colors are all bright and happy, bright greens, radiant reds, wonderful whites, purpley purple, etc. The second thing I noticed was that I had no idea what was going on. It took some time, but I eventually figured this game out, and almost wished I hadn't.

In Theme Park you are a Park Manager out to build the bestest (not a word, but it somehow works with this game) Theme Park in all the world. You start with just a scrap of land, and some money, and hope to turn that into the best thrill ride center ever created. There are several different types of rides, each one bizarrely animated, and somewhat clever in design. You would spend a great deal of time just plotting out how your park would go before you ever opened it. You placed rides carefully by shops and sideshows, the better to get the Peeps to spend their money! You would also set research levels, and with any remaining money, invest in the stock market.

And then open your park, and pray. Peeps make absolutely no sense at all. 90% of them hate everything. They're not made happy by rides, entertainers, or even by winning in a sideshow. They're just always down in the dumps for some reason. In fact, the only way I ever got them to be happy, and therefore bring in more business (based, I suppose, on positive word of mouth) was to run a constant stream of expensive fireworks. Isn't that wonderful rollercoaster back there enough? Nope, apparently all these peeps want are their fireworks. Secondly, the Peeps don't seem to go anywhere for any particular reason. They'll leave the path to exit the park, and get themselves trapped somewhere, they'll all spontaneously decide that a line no longer exists when it does (watch as half the line leaves for no good reason).

The actual building of a Theme Park is secondary to the running of a Theme Park, that is, the management aspect of it. So, not only do you have to hire employees, but you have to train them and give them raises, usually at the threat of an employee strike . The only way to prevent a strike is to hit the bargaining table with them, in which you have a limited amount of time to reach an agreement. This often happens in the middle of something quite important, such as a ride about to explode, and it's quite the shock to suddenly find yourself giving out 30% raises, that you can't really afford. This also happens so frequently that you'll just wish you could hire robots to replace these whining ninnies.

However, the most irritating fact of life in Theme Park Management is having to order, and re-order the stocks for your restaurants. Since you can only hold so much in stock, and all restaurants dip from the same pool (i.e. all ice cream shops take from the same stock), you'll need to keep on top of this, and there isn't really a good way to plan this. The ''adviser'' only tells you about this, just before you run out, well after you needed to have ordered it. So, more often than not, my shops were running on empty, and I couldn't get their much needed revenues for my park.

By putting the ''Business'' end of the game first, Bullfrog really sucks the fun out of this game. The only purpose of this game is to make money, which leaves the game feeling hollow, unlike other games, such as Rollercoaster Tycoon and SimCity 3000 which are rewards into themselves.

The only real differences between the PC and the PSX versions are that the PC version had decent controls and menus, while the PSX version is a convoluted mess, which doesn't help an already poor game.

I rated Theme Park 4 because it is a good idea, that just didn't execute that well, and the PC version is slightly better.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 04/09/00, Updated 04/09/00