It's roots lie within Theme Park and Transport Tycoon, but Rollercoaster Tycoon has improved upon a winning formula.
Rollercoaster Tycoon brings 21 interesting and diverse Missions to you - each with multiple objectives and difficulties. Gradually getting harder, you will be forced to come up against tighter deadlines, bigger profits and even bigger drops. And no, not drops in revenue - but the kind we get after that first hill on the Big Dipper we are all drawn to upon entering our Theme Park.
Not only are you equipped to design and upkeep your own version of Fantasy Land, you can go so far as to create your own Rollercoaster. From Wooden track to Steel, and everything else in-between, there is a great variety in how you can create. Or you can always just load in one of the many pre-built designs that you may just plonk in on some free real estate. Connect the paths to where your guests roam - and in will pour your funds.
It isn't this easy however - you must balance each and every turn - make sure there is enough gravity to make that height - that there is enough speed for the ride to be thrilling, that people will be rattled on the Wooden Rollercoaster, but not feel to sick that they can't enjoy the ride. You must cater to a wide variety of guests - build easy to navigate paths, create rides and sections where they will feel more comfortable before taking on your ultimate ride - provide food service areas which will help your bank account, but you will need garbage bins nearby our your park will begin to resemble a tip. You must balance each action with a reaction - purposefully design to make maximum profit, but also to be instantly and continually appealing for your peeps.
There are many options to how you play the game, but an important feature not available, a Sandbox mode - is not included in game, which is very noticeable, though the variety in Challenges and the fact that you can continue playing after completing a challenge helps allieve that. Creating Rollercoasters is suprisingly easy, and yet there are so many ways in which they can be constructed. Utilising the isometric viewpoint which is synomonous with Strategy games, you are given a good setup in which you can easily see what is happening and how to best place the pieces.
An excellent tutorial mission will explain everything easily to you, from creating rollercoasters, to managing your park. There is a challenge - but the variety in options doesn't extend as far as you would like to the gameplay, making the game a wash, rinse, repeat cycle. As well, there are only 2 game speeds, so speeding up time is not an option, even if you have already completed your objectives.
The various music and sound effects are pretty much spot on - you really do feel as if you are in a Theme Park. The music gets a little boring over time though, but each individual ride has it's own tunes (and in many cases, multiple tunes), which you can turn on and off at will, so it isn't too bad. The sound effects are great, with people screaming their lungs out as they turn a shap corner on that Steel Rollercoaster you made, to the sound of the toilet's being flushed, everything sounds as it should, though, again - becomes repetitive.
Graphics wise - Rollercoaster Tycoon is a functional game, which does what it's trying to do very well. Oerall presentation is fairly static - with your peeps resembling each other far too often and your environmental pieces (even when you create them) generic and a little boring. You can paint your own Rollercoasters, and to a degree, craft a world specifying to a single theme, like magic, or Alice in Wonderland. These inclusions are skin deep though, the gameplay is much the same - but overall, the graphics represent a good job at giving you the best view on your park and your options. It just could have used a bit more personality though.
Overall, Rollercoaster Tycoon isn't a big step from it's forebears. It's an interesting take on Park Simulation - and it succeeds on a great scale - this is a fun game which gives you a great deal of options on how to design and manage your own personal Disneyland. If this were given more time in development - the end product could have been better, but nonetheless, Rollercoaster Tycoon provides a solid and fun simulation of running your own Theme Park, and there aren't many games that can make that claim.