When I was in junior high, my school (go Falcons!) had an open computer lab during recess. Toward the end of lunch, a computer lab teacher would come down to the cafeteria and fetch the kids who wanted to go to the lab. It was first-come, first-serve for the good computers, the ones that had Sim City, Sim Ant, Lemmings, and Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego? loaded on them. (Ah, 1992... good times.) The other computers were just stupid black-and-white Apples that had word processors and some ancient paint program. Zzzzz... bor-ing! So I always wanted to be the first in the lab line. In order to do this, I'd have to take my place in line at the beginning of lunch. As in -- forgo eating lunch in exchange for a chance to spend thirty minutes playing Sim City. Sim City. How I loved you. How I loved to build bus depots and fire stations and industrial zones. How rewarding it was to build a city and see it thrive. How satisfying it was to purposely cause natural disasters and watch said city be destroyed. Fires! Tornadoes! Alien invasions or maybe I'm confusing that with another game! Hey, remember Movie Monsters for the Commodore? I love simulating destruction. It would be nice if I could say I've since left my obsessive gaming ways behind. But I have not. Thoughts of hunger pains and bathroom needs go out the window when I have that one last boss to beat or that one scenario that just has to be conquered. Video games are dangerous. Dangerous... and wonderful. There have been a few games in my lifetime (besides Sim City) that have hooked me to the point of obsession. Rollercoaster Tycoon was one of them. And it's funny, because I don't like roller coasters. They're fast and jarring and they make people puke. In other words, I'm not the grandma from Parenthood. I prefer the merry-go-round, because it just goes 'round and 'round. Wheee! Before stumbling across RCT, I'd played another rollercoaster simulation game, and had not been impressed. I'd also played this really dorky game called Lego Theme Park. Eh, shut up, it was one of those discount games at Office Depot, and I was bored, okay? Lego Theme Park let you build a park, but you didn't really have creative control. You only got to have a certain amount of rides, and there were all these stupid restrictions. Probably because the game is meant for 6-year-olds and they need a lot of help. Not me, though. I wanted a big park! So I chucked stupid old Lego Theme Park and went for something even better -- RCT... which is not so much a rollercoaster-building program as it is a game about designing your very own amusement park. Rollercoaster Tycoon proved to be fun and addictive. If I wasn't designing coasters, I was planning out kiddielands with carousels, ferris wheels, and bumper cars. I was hiring maintenance workers and entertainers. I was buiding hamburger stands and map kiosks and bathrooms galore. I was playing for 5 hours a day. I couldn't stop. Those little pixels they called "people" needed me. Messages popped up, telling me my guests were hungry and couldn't find any drink kiosks. I must build more! Guests were complaining because of all the litter in my park! Oh no, we can't have that -- I must buy more trash cans and hire more janitors! MY GUESTS MUST BE HAPPY! THEIR NEEDS MUST BE MET! Man, I loved this game. I still love it. It's not like certain others, where I played it so much, I got burned out. My love for RCT endures. After conquering every single scenario in the first RCT, I purchased Rollercoaster Tycoon 2, which allowed for even more creativity than before. (RCT3 is currently out, but my lame-o computer can't handle it. So I'll just be discussing RCT2 in this article.) When you begin playing RCT2, you can choose to play off a scenario, or create your own scenario (or, of course, continue a saved game). Some are easy, some are downright impossible and obnoxious, but they're all fun to try. If you don't like being told what to do, then it's best to create your own scenario. You can even make a scenario that's revoltingly easy... basically giving yourself a large canvas on which to build the park of your dreams, without restrictions. Now that is some serious fun. There's nothing easy about RCT at first... those little guests are whiny brats, and they complain constantly. Wahhh we're lost, your paths suck... boo hoo, we're hungry, feed us! I mean, here you are, just trying to build an awesome park and make those little people happy, and they are just never satisfied. This ride's too expensive, that one makes everybody sick, that one's queue time is astronomical... bad bad bad. However, once you get used to the various complaints the guests tend to have, you can learn to fix most of their problems quickly. And then there's the money issue. Normally you start out with a $10,000 loan, and you can borrow more money -- but there's a limit. Plus, you have to pay interest on whatever you borrow, and that can seriously drain your bank account. But just wait until that new rollercoaster starts attracting the guests... oh, the ching-ching of the money rolling in is a beeeautiful sound. So, okay, you can build rides. Lots of them. They've got everything from log flumes to waterslides, from monorails to motion simulators, from gigantic, nausea-inducing rolleroasters to swan-shaped paddle boats. Each ride has an exit and entrance (both good things) from which you must construct pathways. If you want to kill your guests, you can build a ride exit over a body of water and put no path there, but that's not very nice, is it? Plus, multiple incidents of murdering your guests will really drag your park rating down... and then no one will want to come. Oh yeah, and everyone will hate you, killer. Employees in gorilla costumes roam free There are a lot of things to consider when building rides. Some come pre-made, but others you must design yourself. The laws of gravity are in effect here, so you have to think about chain lifts and g-forces and too-fast turns. Like, for example, those water slides... if you make a really steep hill, and then put an open turn at the bottom of it... the little dinghies will fly off the waterslide and crash. Demises galore. It's a bad thing. Very bad. When I first got RCT, I was accidentally killing my guests all over the place, but it didn't take me too long to discover what works and what doesn't. Candyland, land of deliciousness Then there are the food stands. Hamburgers, pretzels, popcorn, sodas, lemonades... you can put up anything you think your guests will want to eat. Don't forget to provide them with lots of benches... and also trash cans... because if you don't put trash cans every few feet, those dirty guests will throw their crap all over your park. It's good to position tiny food courts in numerous spots, so that the guests won't whine too much about being unable to find any food. Also, don't forget bathrooms... if you forget to build bathrooms, you'll have a bunch of little guests running through your park doing the "I've gotta go" dance. It's a little unnerving. You can also put up balloon stands, souvenir stands, and little stalls for buying hats, umbrellas, and T-shirts. With most, you can designate the color of hat (shirt, whatever) that will be sold at that stand. So if you want everyone in your park to have little cowboy hats, you can. I personally like to put out a lot of balloon stalls, because they provide some extra entertainment for me. Whenever someone lets go of their balloon, it will soar toward the heavens. I like to pop them. My favorite part of the game is when I beat a scenario. All the people in the park will turn toward me and begin applauding. They will release all their balloons and the sky will fill with color. And I will then get to enter my name in the Scenario chart because, yes, I am a master amusement park builder -- and proud of it! 12/10/2005 While you're at it, check out my review of Zoo Tycoon! Back to Games Back to Main Leave a message in the blog or the guestbook to comment on this article. :) (c)2005 AlligatorJuice.com.