If you believe the world of tycoon games, you can be a tycoon in almost any industry. There have been games devoted to becoming a mall tycoon, a roller coaster tycoon, a pizza tycoon, and much, much more. Now, Airborne Entertainment has delivered Skateboard Park Tycoon to mobile phones. If you've ever wanted to handle the business side of a skate park, now's your chance. However, a general lack of depth makes this business strategy pretty transparent.
Skateboard Park Tycoon is broken up into two modes: The action mode lacks a spending limit, letting you go as far into the red as you like in order to build the ultimate skate park; career mode makes you spend a little more responsibly. If you have a negative amount of cash on hand for three days of game time, your game ends. This difference essentially makes the career mode slower, since you'll have to build your park in increments and wait for some more money to roll in before you can expand. The in-game documentation also claims that your parks in career mode will be saved between sessions, but on the LG VX6000 that we used to test the game, this feature didn't work.
Skateboard Park Tycoon gives you the basics when it comes to building a park and managing your various resources. You can place park pieces, like various ramps and rails, as well as a half-pipe, around your park. Once you place your first piece, you'll start getting a skater or two in your park. You can continue to place park pieces in real time, so you won't have to close the park to make adjustments. There are also a lot of facilities that you can add to your park, such as a food or drink stand, a pro shop, first aid, bathrooms, and so on. These facilities, which help keep skaters in the park once they're in, don't need to be placed around the park; you either have them or you don't. As you add to your park, the game rates the quality of your park. This number also doubles as the amount you can safely charge for admission. This number fluctuates from time to time, so you'll constantly have to manage your admission price to make sure you're charging the maximum amount without charging too much.
It's difficult to lose in Skateboard Park Tycoon. The strategy behind managing your park is as simple as not spending too much money and making sure that you're charging the right amount of money. Once you get the money rolling in, it's easy to move those profits into new items for the park, which lets you charge more money for admission, and in turn, brings in more profit. Without any real turmoil to get in your way, the game's just too easy, and it never really presents you with any challenge.
At least Skateboard Park Tycoon looks good. The game might not run at a blazingly fast speed or anything, but considering you aren't actually controlling the skaters, this doesn't matter much. It's just cool to see the little skaters mill about in your park, trying to nail tricks on your various pieces. Sometimes they'll pull off the trick, sometimes they'll wreck, and occasionally they will require first aid. If you're feeling sadistic, you can even go into a skater-specific view and choose a "crash skater" option to make them stack a few times, just for kicks.
Unfortunately, the game's sound is pretty awful. It has one song for the title screen and one song for the game. Both of them are weak and they're so short that you'll be listening to the same loop-over music over and over again. There aren't any sound effects at all, and you'll certainly want to turn the music down almost immediately.
Overall, Skateboard Park Tycoon simply lacks the depth you'd expect from a tycoon-style strategy game. At first glance, it has the basics covered. But you'll figure out how to play this one successfully almost immediately, making it very short on value. If you're fiending for a tycoon game on your cell phone, this might engage you for a short time, but if you're looking for a strategy game with some meat on its bones, look elsewhere.
