Misunderstood, underrated masterpiece.
After playing this game for a few hours the first time after installing I was disappointed. The feeling of the other games just wasnt there and the music and graphics made it almost unrecognizeable compared to the other two.
I left the game alone for about a week, and then gave it another try.
This time I started to notice how this game actually shines with the 3d camera and numerous details.
You can freely zoom in and out from a birdseye overview perspective, all the way to a closeup of a park guest.
This opens up a whole new level of atmosphere. With the advanced camera option enabled you can more or less walk around your park in a first person view. The paths covered by trees, filled with guests, stores, your park entertainers, scenery is absolutely stunning to see, especially at night when the path lights turn on.
The guest detail is incredible. You can see your peeps buying slices of pizza at a pizza stand, and you then actually see them walking around with it. The same goes for park maps, sunglasses, popcorn, icecream, etcetera.
The new camera also allows you to build your park in a more controlled way. Forget the 4-way camera from RT1 and 2, now you can actually see why your coaster doesnt connect ;)
Every attraction can be seen in action trough a first person perspective, from your self-built rollercoasters to the overwatch towers, to the trams that run around your park, to the canoo's that navigate around the self-built lake.
Rides are heavily custsmizeable. The actual track, the ride's colors, the music, the car types, the intervals when rides take off, you name it. Like in other RT games you can add hills, lakes, ravines, different floor types like desert, grass, snow, rock, mud.. Hundreds of scenery items to add to your paths and fields; dozens of trees, lights, garbage cans, benches, ride banners, path types, hedges and walls, bushes, flower fields; all this spread over about 10 different themes which changes the item's appearances.
Special effects can be added to your rides aswell; for example you can place a big oil tower that explodes when a car passes a certain part of the track that triggers it.
To continue, the ability to create your own scenery buildings has been expanded. You can make tunnels over your rides, buildings with doors and windows allowing you to make a little town to place your stores in, you can build entire buildings over your rides with doors that open when a car approaches.. you name it.
This allows incredible creativity.
I will include a few words about the expansion packs here aswell; they make the game truely complete.
With them you can make your own zoo's, safari rides, waterfalls, tunnels for pedestrian paths,custimize dolphin and lion shows; stupid as it might sound, it is incredibly fun if you like filling in details.
Swimming pools can be made, including loads of provisions like diving boards, water glides, wave generators, jacuzzi's, showers and so on.
Lasershows are included aswell, elevators and tons of new rides also make their appearance.
All in all this comes down to well over a hundred, maybe even two hundred different rides, all fully customizeable loaded with options.
About pc performance: My current pc is pretty old for modern day standards (1gb ram, geforce7600, amd 3200) but I can play RT3 without any problems or slowdowns at all, on the highest settings (but on 1024x800) in huge parks.
The only bug I ever found in my near-hundred hours of playing this game was the paths that don't connect well on a hill. Easily solved with some 3-second terrain editing.
I have played RT3 for about 3 times longer than Call of Duty 4 and Crysis full singleplayer COMBINED and I even had more fun in RT3 most of the time.
Forget your RT1/2 arcade gameplay, and take your time to dive in the never-boring world of Rollercoaster Tycoon 3.
9,5