Rollercoaster Tycoon World Review

Now let’s get one thing straight, when I asked the glorious gaming gods for another theme park simulation game that would keep me hooked for hours on end I did not expect to get 2 in one go!

As you may have seen from my previous reviews I recently reviewed Planet Coaster, (if you haven’t recently seen my reviews, where have you been? Here’s a link if you fancy it https://www.totalgamingaddicts.com/author/kellyskranium/ #ShamelessPlug), and within that review I spoke about park management, frustrating controls and awesome AI. Now I’m not sure whether Nvizzio Creations and Frontier Developments are in cahoots with each other but it all seems too good to be true that 2 fun and interesting theme park simulators are released so close to each other and have (mostly) the same quirks. I will not compare the 2, no no, I will review this game on its own entirely, and by doing that, I have to tell you that it is fun and exciting, along with being frustrating and scream inducing (and not the fun screams you have whilst going on a ride).

We all know the history of the Rollercoaster Tycoon series, everyone and anyone who was a teenager within the later 90’s, early 00’s played Rollercoaster Tycoon on their windows PC. Ah, the memories come flooding back don’t they? As we grew, the game evolved itself, with expansion packs and sequels, mobile versions of the game and console ports, and here we all are at the latest instalment of the series, Rollercoaster Tycoon World. And here I am to say, turn back, everything has broken.

With PC gaming evolving more and more it appears that Atari have tried to evolve Rollercoaster Tycoon into something that it just shouldn’t be. As a kid all we wanted to do was build the ride and click on that “Ride Camera” button, also we wanted to see how many people would throw up because of our awesome rides. But in this new instalment can you believe that there are safety rules for roller coasters? Who thought of that? When I got into sandbox mode I wanted to build the highest roller coaster I could and then tumble it into 10 loop the loops with some corkscrews thrown in for good measure! But the MAN came in and said I couldn’t do that because my roller coaster didn’t pass a safety test. So you know what I could build? 3 loops, 1 corkscrew and a drop that can be compared to a children’s ride at a fairground.

It’s not all bad, Rollercoaster Tycoon World does have a particularly fun Career mode which acts in the same way as a play-along tutorial. It tried to tell some form of story (I have no idea what story it’s trying to tell at all, don’t ask, I’m lost) and hand-in-hand tells you what you need to do to progress the storyline to the next level. It was fun going into some half made levels where all you needed to do was place a ride or attract a certain amount of people. But after a while it became stagnant and slightly boring. I hate to say it, but this game just doesn’t keep my attention for as long as I’d want it to.

The AI is, how do I put this, quirky at the best of times. Within the game your rides break down and you must hire mechanics to fix your rides otherwise you won’t have people riding them and you won’t get money to buy more stuff. However, when a ride broke down not only did a mechanic simply walk past the broken ride, but when picked up and placed at the ride they simply got stuck in the queue and then had to go for a rest break! I had to delete and replace 3 rides within my game just because the mechanic AI wouldn’t fix it!

Customisation plays a big part within these games and I think that’s one thing that this game is slightly better at. As with all theme park simulators you can raise and lower terrain, pick from a multitude of paths and queues and build your own buildings and props. However, when you are in Career mode, you have to pay for the privilege of customisation with in game tokens that you earn. I found this slightly frustrating as I love customisation and feel it should be a given when you play a game like this.

The graphics aren’t too bad, however I did notice that there were times when the frame rate dropped significantly. Luckily the game did fix itself after a few seconds and I haven’t been as unlucky as other players, but I would suggest that if you are to play this game you should have a RAM capacity of 6-8gb or more. I don’t think that this game would be playable with anything under that.

Control wise, it is easy and simple as it has always been with this series, click and place, drag and drop, whatever you want to call it, it works. However, one thing that did frustrate me with this game is that if you want to pan the camera around your park you have to use WASD or the directional buttons on your keyboard, you can’t simply click and drag your mouse like other games. The amount of times I accidentally placed a ride because I wanted to move the camera was insane! Another frustrating control was that if you accidentally did something wrong the usual “Ctrl+Z” to undo doesn’t work within this game. In fact, after some searching I couldn’t find anywhere that showed “Undo”. So if you accidentally placed a tree in the wrong area you had to then demolish the tree which cost you more money.

The game play itself is fun and quirky, with the usual park management system in place it takes everything into account. As a theme park manager you have to take into account your footfall, your rides, your finances, your customers and your staff. But Rollercoaster Tycoon World gives you a lot more to focus on and it ends up just being a headache rather than a fun experience.

Summary

Rollercoaster Tycoon has been a series that has followed us throughout the years but it should have stayed in the past. With its over complication and unwillingness to work with all computer set ups this latest game needs to be tweaked a lot more in order to be a fully working, enjoyable game for all ages to enjoy.