Developer: Nvizzio Creations
Publisher: Atari, RCTO Productions
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
RollerCoaster Tycoon World – Preview
When the first RollerCoaster Tycoon game hit the stores ‘way back’ in 1999 it became an instant success, but it slowly decreased with every release that followed. Especially when Atari took the reigns, things turned sour quickly and it was another blemish on the publisher’s name. Oddly enough people were so captivated with building their own amusement parks that we even didn’t care about hiring personnel to clean up our vomit stained digital theme parks, as long as we could build our own wacky creations after earning the necessary funds. RollerCoaster Tycoon World tries to bring back that same feeling and in a sense it does.
First of all the RollerCoaster Tycoon series has thoroughly changed over the years, but in many ways it has stayed the same. You’ll be treated, instead of a very cartoonish world, to a more realistic looking experience, albeit with the many flashy colors still intact. Where the characters used to be 2D and funny, the general populace has shifted to a more adult appearance, which has both its merits and bad points. This game, or series as a whole, doesn’t really need realistic graphics to thrive and be appealing, but nonetheless, the new look works quite properly, especially with all the decorative options that are implemented. Sadly, it seems there is less choice when it comes to funny entertainers that run around the park and so on.
Even in the early access build all different modes are already available, namely the campaign, sandbox and scenario modes. The campaign and sandbox are very much alike, as you’ll be able to do whatever you want, albeit the campaign mode has objectives and money restrictions, while the sandbox mode will allow you to splurge right in and build the park of your dreams. In the scenario mode you’ll occupy yourself by working on an existing park, either making it more popular, saving it from bankruptcy and so on. While the latter is certainly a fun mode, it’s advised for players who have a bit of experience under their belt and truth be told, the campaign mode isn’t the easiest one either. A typical ‘difficulty’ spike can be found in many of the RollerCoaster Tycoon games, where you are running a successful park and suddenly people are not enjoying themselves anymore and you start losing money instead of making it. New attractions often generate a new spike in revenues, but you’ll need the money for it and when you start loaning money from the bank, things often become worse and worse. Nonetheless, it’s a matter of trial and error, as always.
RollerCoaster Tycoon World has been promoted to have the most intuitive controls of the entire series and to a certain extents it’s correct that this iteration allows certain things that were hard or impossible in the previous games. Freehand ‘drawing’ of a rollercoaster is in theory a possibility, but in many ways the controls are either unfinished or are simply poorly optimized, and not only when it concerns creating your own unique rollercoaster. When building roads the issues are already quite clear, as more than often you can’t build roads that are parallel to one another (because, uhm, reasons?) and pretty much 50% of the time you can’t directly connect them to another road, giving you many crooked roads in the process. While this is something that can be solved by adding some decorations all around your own Frankenstein’s monster, it still feels like it’s actually harder to precisely design your park compared to the 1999 version of the game. For some reason, you can’t even build small shops against the road anymore, forcing you to build at least one tile of road leading up to them. While again this isn’t really an issue, it becomes annoying and tedious when you can’t connect the shop to the road in a straight line.
Diving back into the construction of a rollercoaster, the freehand mode allows you to create turns and such in an easy fashion, but for some reason the game never clearly indicates if the ‘last part of the track’ is actually built or not, making sure you make many mistakes during your arduous building project. More than often you accidently do changes you never wanted in the first place or the game doesn’t even process properly what you’re doing. That being said, if you use the traditional mode by adding pieces one at a time, you’ll come a long way. In some cases it’s actually easier to build a fairly standard track and then start editing if you only want to create something standard. If you want to be more creative, it’s advised to slowly learn the ropes.
All of that being said, the game does offer many possibilities when it comes to the attractions, decorations or simply management options that allow you to truly feel like the manager of your own digital paradise. Mess around with everything and try different combinations or perhaps different themed zones within the same park.
The menus of the game look like Windows 3.11 has been brought back from the dead and is slowly entering a symbiosis with RollerCoaster Tycoon World. Things look way too sterile, unappealing and are riddled with spelling mistakes in our localized Dutch version. Honestly, some commands don’t even make any sense and feel like Google Translate has had a part to play in everything. Hopefully this will receive an entire graphical overhaul as it hampers the atmosphere created by the graphical style of the game and the amusing music that accompanies everything.
Conclusion
Even though the controls may currently be lacking, the overall atmosphere of the RollerCoaster Tycoon franchise remains intact. It’s clear still a lot of work has to be done, especially when it comes to the appearance of the menus, yet the game shows a hefty amount of promise and might just redeem Atari’s past mistakes with the series. If you’re into creating flashy amusements parks, this one might be worth it upon its full release.
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