E3 2001 First ImpressionZoo Tycoon

This morning Microsoft demonstrated its zoo-themed strategy game Zoo Tycoon. As mentioned in our 2760751pre-E3 look at the game, your goal is to build a successful zoo that will attract and maintain visitors. To do this, you first build various animal habitats. Zoo Tycoon is primarily intended to be played in an open-ended manner, and it doesn't lock the player into tightly scripted scenarios as some amusement park sim games do. Product Manager Christopher Lye demonstrated the free play mode, in which you build habitats by selecting different types of enclosures such as metal fences, placing different animals in the enclosures, and choosing the most suitable terrain and flora types for your species.

A couple of interesting gameplay elements were shown. First, after the cage was built, the demonstrator removed a few sections of the metal fence. The lions were thus allowed to wander around your zoo grounds, and they immediately ran after visitors, who subsequently ran away in terror. Luckily, there was no real gore involved in such maulings or attacks. You can also place different types of animals in the same enclosed area. For example, giraffes in a lion pen would get mauled, but they'd simply disappear in a puff of smoke. Obviously, these actions were demonstrated for fun, not as an example of realistic victory conditions. In addition, the two lions in our basic enclosure exhibited different behaviors based on their level of well-being. For example, when the savanna grass was placed wall to wall, both lions were happy and began rolling around like lazy, content cats on the ground. Obviously, these are the types of animals you'd want to populate your zoo with. Some of the other elements you'll need for your zoo range from the mundane, such as restrooms and food kiosks, to larger structures such as elephant-riding tents, where visitors will spend money and amuse themselves. We also saw a larger, more involved zoo design that was teaming with activity--visitors roamed from attraction to attraction and many different types of animals lived in their proper environments.

Zoo Tycoon's graphics are colorful, and the game looks quite good overall. The animals have convincing animations, and the visitors can have humorous animations, especially when they're scared out of their wits. Also, from what we could tell, the game interface is very easy to use, with pretty self-explanatory icons (pop-up labels are also available). Zoo Tycoon is scheduled for release this fall.