Cheap RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 - PC

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After many of the 'Tycoon' style games that have been popular over the last few years, the reigning king was a simple family style game called Roller Coaster Tycoon. After two successful expansion packs, developer Chris Sawyer waited well over a year to launch Rollercoaster Tycoon 2. The sequel is based on a no brainer..."Build it and they will come". Seeing that the first game and its expansions still sell well, Infogrames already has a large base of built in fans looking for more of the same, but will these fans love '2', and will this attract new fans? Time will tell.

Overall, the look and feel of the game remains relatively the same. A 3D isometric overhead view allows players to build a theme park from scratch and carry it through pre-defined scenarios. These scenarios have conditions such as have a park rating of X by year Y or have X guests by year Y or build N coasters of type T with an excitement factor of X.

The game ships with about 25 scenarios that are grouped in categories of difficulty: easy, advanced, expert, and Real Parks. The website RollercoasterTyccon2.com promises to have future downloadable scenarios, and one major enhancement over the original game is the inclusion of a scenario editor. Players can now create their own parks/games and trade among friends. You can control all variables from size of park, weather, rides available for research and more.

The 'Real Parks' are actual Six Flag parks from around the world that are pretty close to real world counterparts. You can choose to just manage them or alter them at will.

Game enhancements:

1) Park sizes can be double that of the original game and it supports a much higher screen resolution rate.

2) Scenery: All the original scenery from the RCT and its expansions are present as well as new ones including: Pirate, Scary, Medieval, Gears, Wild West, Giant Gardens and more. There are also more fences, water themes, roofs and walls and the ability to stack scenery makes it much easier to create buildings.

3) New rides: Well obviously there are more coasters but also other attractions as well on top of all the originals.

4) Coaster and ride options: There seems to be much more customizations available for coasters including new car types, special banks, queue line options, supports, signs & banners, special track types and more.

5) New shops and stalls: Again, all the originals and more including sun glass hut, ATM's, First Aid station, more food choices.

6) More music options. Many more styles of music can accompany your rides.

7) Coaster construction: Tool here has been revamped and now you can make/test/save/see coasters better than ever.

Now not everything is perfect in this game:

1) Graphics: Even though the screen resolution and park size has increased, the view is still the same as is the graphics engine. While there is more 'eye-candy' per-se, the overall look is still cartoony and has some 'jaggy' issues. Not to mention that hills, waters, mountains still look slightly un-natural as it did in the original.

2) Lack of scenarios that ship. There are only 3 easy scenarios, a handful of advanced, and more expert. This may prove complex for players who never had the first. Hopefully new ones will be available from the official website soon.

3) No major innovations in game play. I'd like to see new objectives, or disasters to overcome, or new behaviors of park guests, mechanics, handymen, mascots...still the same.

The largest adjustment fans of the original will have to make is getting use to the new construction and customization tools. While they have been expanded (a large plus), they have also taken on new 'handling' characteristics which is proving somewhat confusing for me. For old players, it's retraining how to this new interface and sub-menus...lacking in the 1st game. While this new interface does seem to be much more rich and deep, I truly found it wasn't as intuitive as the RCT 1. I was looking for information that seemed to be present in the 1st game easily, now I have to dig to sub-menus I'm not familiar with.

These were some of the reasons I chose o give it 4 stars instead of 5. Something's are just better off simple, not overly complex.

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In a nutshell, this game is great. The game looks and plays almost exactly like the original, which involves creating amusment parks and every little detail involved in that process from designing and building the roller coasters, to deciding how much a hot dog should cost.

The major new feature is a scenario editor which allows you to create scenarios from the ground up including the land type and size, the amount of money available to you, and the features available as you play. This is a great addition as it provides the opportunity to create the park of your dreams with no limits, or simply see how well you can re-create your favorite theme park from scratch.

Other new features include a coaster designer, some pre-designed Six Flags parks, and a few new rides/themes/shops. No, there aren't a ton of new rides/themes/shops like many had originally hoped not yet anyway. The game has been built on a very large platform, but has not been fully utilized in an obvious effort to release many future expansion packs. The original Roller Coaster Tycoon had two expansion packs; no doubt the sequel hopes to provide even more.

Overall, this is still the most addictive game ever created. It provides literally hours upon hours of non-stop enjoyment. A MUST for anyone with a love for theme parks and/or roller coasters.

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Roller Coaster Tycoon was a game that you could easily find yourself playing for hours into the wee hours of the night. The expansion packs added more coasters and rides but little else. Now, Version 2 is out and is it worth buying? I would say yes, but in some ways I was a little disappointed.

On the plus side, there are a TON of rides and new scenery and shops. Far far more than were in the original game. There are a lot more ways you can customize your ride as well, from the usual color choices, to lots of music selections and new entrance and exit choices. There are many more scenerios, which are happily organized into levels so you can start at the beginner level and work your way up. The game supports a higher screen resolution and you can now create your own scenarios and design coasters apart from the game itself.

On the down side, as a previous player I found some things hard to find as they've been moved around and re-organized a bit. I suppose it's fine for new players, and I'm sure I'll get used to it, but in most cases, I really didn't even see the point. I would have liked more coaster and ride designs as well. Really disappointed with how many offer just one selection for a pre-designed ride. There should be at least two I think for every ride.

I also got a bit frustrated with some of the scenarios. You would start working on a park and the rating would go south before you really had time to figure out what the park's problems were, and would be virtually impossible to recover from. Oh well, I guess some people will enjoy the challenge. I just found it annoying.

And the look of the game is basically identical. Guests walking around and riding the rides, very cartoony look to everything, same type of staff options, etc. No real changes to what guests do for instance. I didn't really expect much change from what the box showed, but would have been nice to see more.

Overall, I loved all the new rides and options, but it really is just a lot of the same game. If you loved the original, you'll definitely like this game too. But here's hoping a version 3 will show us a bit more innovation.

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Essentially this is like another add-on to the previous game in that much of what was in the first RCT is still here plus more. A few of the controls have changed, but Sawyer didn't mess too much with a lot of the graphics. However, the tracks and saved games are not compatible with version one. The improvements read like the wish lists from coaster and gamer sites. Significant is the inclusion of a scenario designer. This makes trading games on-line a reality. Also, a sandbox is included which allows the creation of coasters without having to consider the game aspect. Lastly, an improvement to the track options has been included. Most who have played RCT may have noticed the lack of banking on curved drops. RCT2 allows the banked drops on many of its coasters now.

In terms of expertise, RCT assumes a greater level here in that even the beginner parks ask for what I'd call "tycoon strategy".

This game is sure to keep those whose theme parks are closed for the season happy. Enjoy.

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Infogrames decided not to make an expansion pack to Roller Coaster Tycoon, but to make a sequel to the original.

Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 has tutorials inside the game so for those of you who never played Roller Coaster Tycoon doesn't have to worry. The main feature of Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 is that the map got bigger than the original version. The original version was 128*28 but Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 is 256*56. Basically, it got twice bigger. Also, Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 has lots of themes. You can build your own park using jungle, jurassic, space, or ghost theme. There's even more. You can meet the real roller coasters of Six Flags. For examples, 'Deja Vu', 'Medusa', 'Chang', 'V2', 'X', and 'Titan'. The part that I was disappointed was that it didn't have new brand features. Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 is not different from the original version, except that the graphic got a tiny bit better. If you are one of those fans who love Six Flags and roller coasters, I highly recommend this game.