RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 Updated Impressions

Atari's Ken Allen explains how RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 can be played in many ways. Double-click on the video window for a full-screen view.

We recently had the opportunity to meet with Ken Allen, a senior producer at Atari who is currently working on RollerCoaster Tycoon 3. We didn't actually get to try the game, but Allen did take the time to show off a number of the game's new features, and he talked to us about even more.

If you've taken a look at any of our RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 screenshots and movies, you'll already know that the game's 3D visuals are a vast improvement over those of its 2D predecessors. There's something more impressive about actually seeing the game played versus watching a professionally-put-together trailer of it. Taking a tour of Allen's well-established theme park (both from a free-camera view and from riding the park's monorail) really was a treat. As our monorail traveled through the different themed areas of the park, we got to witness such spectacles as a giant T-rex roaring, a rock slide, an erupting volcano, and, of course, a great white shark jumping out of some water. Just sitting there on the monorail was surprisingly engaging, and we'd wager that the experience will be even more enjoyable when you're taking a tour of a park that you've created. The five themes in the game, incidentally, will include generic, western, adventure, spooky, and sci-fi.

Before we got into the management side of RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, Allen invited us to take a ride on one of his park's many coasters. The game will feature around 50 predesigned roller coasters for you to place in your park, and, as in previous games, you'll also have the ability to design your own coaster from scratch. The roller coaster we rode featured just about everything you could think of, so there were loop-the-loops, corkscrews, near-vertical drops, and enough sharp turns to induce nausea in all but the most fanatical thrillseekers. Interestingly, you'll have the option to run tests on any roller coasters you design, and you can score them on such factors as excitement, speed, and nausea. Certain park visitors, known in-game as peeps, will only go on rides that have been tested, but others will be willing to try just about anything, thus giving you the opportunity to use them as guinea pigs so that you can see if they're looking bored or are blowing chunks when they step off of your creation. In the final version of the game, you'll actually be able to ride alongside the peeps so that you can check out their reactions to different parts of the coaster. However, in the pre-beta version we could only ride solo.

In addition to the coasters, we got to see a number of different rides at Allen's park, including Ferris wheels, log flumes, go-cart tracks, and just about every type of ride that you've ever seen at a traveling carnival. Other attractions in RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 will include cinemas, video game arcades, and rides designed specifically for younger peeps. The peeps, incidentally, are almost as impressive to see in action as the rides are. They clearly exhibit different group and family behaviors, so, for example, while teenagers and young couples can occasionally be seen scouring the park for somewhere secluded to make out, parents with young children often end up spending their time just trying to keep up with their excitable offspring as they run toward whichever attraction has caught their eyes. The types of peeps that visit your park will vary with the game's new day-and-night cycle, by the way, so while entertaining prepubescents might be your priority while the sun is up, it's college kids and young couples that'll (hopefully) flock to your park once night falls and your spectacular firework shows get under way. Weather will also play a part in determining the number and type of visitors that will come to your park. Weather, as it were, will be generated based on both the climate in which you build your park and the specific season of the year.

RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 will be the first game in the series to feature a sandbox mode in which you can build the park of your dreams without having to worry about the usual constraints, such as money. The primary mode of play, though, will be the scenario-based career mode--with no time limits this time around. Your objectives in the career mode will be varied, and the difficulty will be determined by whether you're playing the scenario on the apprentice, entrepreneur, or tycoon setting. Based on what we saw of the career mode, you'll typically be given three objectives to meet during each scenario. These might include achieving a certain level of income from rides, creating a park with a predetermined dollar value, or satisfying the very specific needs of a visiting V.I. Peep, such as President Clint Bushton.

Some of the most impressive features of RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, it seems, will be the editing tools that you can use to really make the park feel like it's your own. Terraforming, for example, is extremely easy to do using a selection of brushes that can effectively "paint" raised, lowered, or flattened pieces of land in and around your park. You'll also be able to use building blocks from the game's scenery editor to assemble your own structures that can subsequently be saved and used as objects elsewhere. (Allen's park featured a number of futuristic-looking tunnels and walkways that were constructed in this manner.) Editor tools that we didn't get to see in action--but we're assured will ship with the game--include a scenario designer for creating your own career-style levels and a peep designer that can be used to, for example, create peep likenesses of your family and friends. Another feature we were told about--but, unfortunately, didn't get to see for ourselves--includes the photo spots at which peeps will stop to take photos of themselves. You'll even have the option to view these photos in the game. RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 is currently scheduled for release on November 2.