Ah yes, Roller Coaster Tycoon, a great money management series with fun gameplay and a non-complicated money system. But it seems that Atari is giving it a good slap to the face recently with Roller Coaster Tycoon 4 Mobile, which is exactly what you would expect it to be, choked full of micropayments and shallow gameplay, but fear not, Atari has promised us a PC port. Yes, a PC port of MOBILE GAME. *Sigh* Well, fear not again, there are still the older games, including my favorite, Roller Coaster Tycoon 2, or RCT2 as I will be calling it from here on out. So Atari finally put RCT1 and RCT2 on Steam and I have finally gotten it. RCT2 was made primarily by Chris Sawyer, who is also known for his game Transport Tycoon. RCT2 was released in 2002 in North America and has received great reviews from critics. Now that we got some background out of the way, time for the review. RCT2's game play is absed around running an amusement park, where you must build roller coasters, "flat rides" (AKA non-roller coaster rides, not including water rides.) food stands, and shops. You have normally given a ten thousand dollar loan at the start and then it is your job to build your park. You also have an objective to complete, which might be to have X amount of guests in the park at the end of X year, or to have a park rating of X by X year, or to have X amount of ride ticket sales by X year. The game can be frustrating, particularity when the objective is to have X amount of guests in the park by X year AND to not have the park rating fall lower than X. Despite some scenarios being a bit hard, it's still a lot of fun to play. The Steam version comes with the game's two expansion packs, which adds new rides and scenarios. You can also download other peoples parks and add them into the same or you can create your own in the game itself using the Scenario Creator. The game also comes with some other tools, including a Roller Coaster Creator that allows you to create roller coaster easily with no money and no terrain to get in the way, and once you are done creating said roller coaster, you can save it and use it in your parks. Another great feature is how you can deal with annoying guests. Is a guest whining about the disgusting state of the park's paths? Well don't waste your money on more janitors, just throw him into the pond and watch him drown. Is a guest complaining about the lack of bathrooms? Set up an area with a free drink stall, a bench, and bathroom that charges ten dollars to use and never have people complain about the lack of bathrooms again. All in all, its a great game that you can put many hours into but it might not be the thing for you if you don't like time and money management. I give RCT2 an 8/10. If you want to buy it, it is currently five dollars on Steam, but get it soon before it goes back to ten dollars.
I've only played RCT3 and it's one of my favorite games. I've seen reviews about the RCT4 mobile version, and it doesn't look great. But I've also heard that it might be a different game and not a port that is released on PC, but I haven't been following the news very closely. And one last thing, didn't Atari go broke for the 10th time or something a few years ago?
Great game. My favorite part was bringing a whole bunch of people into the park and blocking the exit so that they could never leave. I didn't let them go until they had used up all their money on food and restroom breaks. I love business.
