Superb port of a superb game. A must have if you like management sims.
A nearly perfect port of a great PC game. Graphics look better on the DS than the original. Wonderfully easy-to-use touch-screen interface.
The bad:
The gameplay can become a little repetitive, with you building the same park over and over again. Bad music.
So there I was, looking ahead on the GS “new releases” page, getting an idea of what was to come in the coming months for the DS, when I spotted this game slated for release in March. Nooooo….couldn’t be the same game as that Bullfrog release….could it?
I mean…that was a truly great game…a pioneering venture into the wonderful world of business management sims….set in an amusement park. It was a stroke of genius. Everyone loves amusement parks. Why not allow you the opportunity to build one?
Anyway, my excited sense of anticipation rapidly gave way to a sense of dread. How, I thought, could they possibly cram that wonderful PC game into a DS without some major sacrifices? In the original, you could control every aspect of your park, right down to how much ice you wanted to put into the sodas you sell (to boost profits). To top off my sinking feeling, there was the fact that this incarnation was being put together by none other than EA, a company who, in my humble opinion, has not exactly been great of late, churning out carbon copies of the same sports game for years. How could they possibly do this title justice? Would the Bouncy Castle still bounce? Would you still be able to design your own rollercoaster from scratch? Are the go-karts and tubing still there? Will you get to see the park full of little people marching around with smiles, frowns, or hunger signs over their heads? I doubted it.
So I got my hands on a copy.
Damn.
It’s the same game.
I mean….it’s EXACTLY the same wonderful game originally done for PC….you can control everything, build everything, manage EVERYTHING in your own little amusement park (or parks, rather, since there are 16 different countries, with different demographics). The rides all look the same as the original, the degree of control over everything (number of people allowed on, speed of the ride, etc) is still there….wow.
If you didn’t play the original, you missed out, but fear not: this is an absolutely faithful rendering of it. I can’t believe they managed to cram every nuance in there, and produce a business management sim with such magnificent depth, decent enough graphics for a 15 year old game, and a streamlined intuitive user interface (i.e. the touchscreen controls everything). Doing something is as simple as ‘pointing and clicking’, be it drawing a new path, erasing one, placing a worker or ride….the interface is so easy to use that it fades into the background as you start playing, and become absorbed in the park you are designing, price-tweaking the teddy bears, clicking on random people walking around to see what they’ve done in your park and what they are feeling so far….again, wow.
The only negative is that the music they've introduced is pretty weak, but luckily you can switch it off but leave the other sounds on. I wish more games allowed this option.
The only other potential negative is that the whole idea of building a theme park is wonderful at first, but begins to wear thin when you are starting off on your 6th or 7th. The main problem is, there is not enough variety of gameplay to force you to deviate from a formula you may have found works. So, you end up building pretty much the same park over and over, which for some might get boring fast. Me? I love it, since I'm always trying out new configurations, putting rides near or away from others, or for a laugh, trying to put together the worst possible park (outhouses next to restaurants and ride exits so there's lots of sick people....wheeee).
Thank you EA….you’ve restored my faith in you as a producer of quality video games.