RollerCoaster Tycoon 3
| RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 England Box Art | |
|---|---|
| UK cover | |
| Developer(s) | Frontier Developments |
| Publisher(s) | Atari |
| Platform(s) | Mac OS X, Windows |
| Release | October 26, 2004 (NA) November 5, 2004 (EU) |
| Genre(s) | Strategy |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 is a simulation strategy computer game that simulates theme park management. Developed by Frontier Developments and published by Atari, it was released in November 2004. It is the sequel to RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 and is the third game in the RollerCoaster Tycoon series.
Although RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 is based primarily on the previous two games, Chris Sawyer, the developer of the series' first 2 releases, was only involved at a 'consulting' level and was not one of the programmers.
Gameplay
Like the other games in the series, the premise of the game is to complete a series of preset scenarios by successfully building and maintaining theme parks. Players can choose from dozens of roller coaster types and can also build log flumes, drop towers, bumper cars, Frisbees, Top Spins, Gravitrons, Ferris wheels, and swinging ships, among other rides. The player can also build their own roller coaster, laying out individual track pieces, choosing direction, height, and steepness, and adding such as elements as zero g rolls, corkscrews, vertical loops, and even on-ride photos. Furthermore, the player can modify the geography, landscaping, and theme elements of the park. Players must also balance the needs of the visitors by strategically placing food stalls, concession stands, bathrooms, and information kiosks. Players must balance their budget in the costs of their staff, ride construction and operations, and the prices set for rides and concessions.
The game marks the series' shift to fully 3D graphics, doing away with the isometric viewpoint of the previous two games. For the first time in the series, players can rotate the view of the park 360 degrees, as well as zoom in and out to any degree. One of the most notable additions to RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 is the ability for players to 'ride' their own creations. Veterans of the series were also pleased to find that the game offered the option of importing user-made roller coaster designs from the previous two games in the series and rendering them in 3D for the first time. The dashboard has gotten a makeover and looks nothing like the ones in the earlier games.
The game also includes full lighting effects and day-night cycles, the ability to create fireworks displays, and the use of custom music tracks in-game. The guests have been significantly improved on those from RollerCoaster Tycoon 2, with enhanced AI, appearance variation, and the ability of guests to be grouped together into families, dates, and other types of groups.
In RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, guests are called "peeps". On some scenarios there are also VIPeeps (Very Important Peeps) that need to be satisfied to complete the scenario. The task of satisfying VIPeeps can either be objective or subjective or even both. Objective tasks include building a rollercoaster with a high enough excitement rating so the VIPeep can ride on it, decorating part or all of the park in the theme as requested by the VIPeep or even set up a pyrotechnic display for the VIPeep to watch. Subjective tasks include ensuring that there the litter or vomit along the VIPeep's path is minimal, ensuring that no rides break down while the VIPeep is on them or queuing for them and keeping autograph hunters away from the VIPeep. Should the player fail to impress a VIPeep, the VIPeep will always return to the park several months later and will keep returning until they are satisfied. There is also a peep designer, allowing the player to design family and friends. Coaster and scenario designers are also included.
Returning to the third game in the series is the "career" mode. There is a total of eighteen scenarios in career mode. Only six scenarios are available for selection at the start. The player must complete scenarios to unlock additional ones, but this time there are 3 sets of goals (or difficulties); apprentice, entrepreneur and tycoon for each scenario that need to be completed. The player only has to beat the apprentice level to unlock the next scenario except for the last two scenarios. To unlock the second last scenario, the player must complete all previous scenarios on entrepreneur or higher. To be able to play the final scenario, the player must beat all other scenarios on the tycoon level. The scenarios in rollercoaster tycoon 3 do not have deadlines.
This time around, as requested by fans for years, a sandbox mode has been added. It allows players to create their own amusement park without any money or ride limitations or objectives.
Fireworks were also a new feature in RollerCoaster Tycoon 3. Players can use premade displays, or create their own. Landscaping and water were also enhanced, and dozens of different coaster types were added. The rides are divided into different categories, including thrill rides and gentle rides.
The food stalls are all different, and many are themed to fit into themed areas or a themed park. The same applies to certain rides. There are five main themes (not including expansions): Adventure, Spooky, Western, SciFi, and Generic.
The game also allows making WMV recordings inside the game. With a cheat code allowing viewing the park using first-person view from a guest, this allows machinima movies to be made, as if the video is taken inside the park.
Expansion packs
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The first expansion pack for "RollerCoaster Tycoon 3", called "Soaked!", was released on June 21, 2005. It features the ability to create water parks with swimming pools with theme parks. Besides pools, the player can add other amenities to water parks including spas, showers, lounge chairs (with or without umbrellas), lifeguard chairs, pool lights, wave making machines, diving springboards and platforms. There are six varieties of rides for water parks including lazy rivers (much like a transport ride), inflatable ship (much like a thrill ride) and four water slides including a body slide. Two new notable footpath amenities include passport machines where guests will receive a free item if they visit the number of machines as specified by the player. Water cannons is the other new amenity where guests can fire water to soak other guests. There is also a new rollercoaster where the guests on that ride can drop water on the guests below. Sunburn is another new concept with Soaked!, if guests get too much sunburn they will become unhappy. Sunburn can be countered by adding shade around footpaths and by adding the new sunscreen and sunglasses stalls. Also included are dolphin and killer whale water show arenas, allowing the creation of parks similar to SeaWorld.. Included in this expansion pack are two new themes. They are "Atlantis", the ancient underwater Greek kingdom and "Paradise Island", which is more of a tropical theme. Soaked! also featured several new rides that are not related to water parks. Soaked! also introduced rides with wide tracks including the Lazy River and Ring/Raft water slide from water parks and the White Water Rapids from elsewhere. Overall, there are an additional 50 new rides. This expansion pack came with nine scenarios in a separate career campaign. The format for unlocking scenarios in both of the expansion pack careers is the same as with the original career mode but only three scenarios are playable at first in the expansion packs. Improvements to the interface were also made. The user could now lock in the height level of objects when making structures with the CONTROL key (as they could in RCT2). The player could now build rollercoaster, rides, footpaths and stall underground as they could with the first two rollercoaster tycoon games. The scroll wheel on the mouse can now be used to scroll down lists of rides and attractions. Previously, the scrollbar was the only option. Many bugs present were also fixed when Soaked! is installed.
The second expansion, Wild!, featured animal enclosures and safari-like attractions. Zookeepers can be hired to care for any animals that are purchased for the park. It also included two new themes, "Safari" (with giant arthropods and Egyptian architecture) and "Prehistoric" (with various species of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals). This expansion pack contains twelve scenarios. It was released on October 25, 2005.
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Soaked! England box art.
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Wild! US box art.
Port
RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 has been ported to Mac OS X. Earlier versions of the game however have not been ported, and due to heavy dependencies on the X86 platform (being that Chris Sawyer games are written in assembly language) it is unlikely that they will be able to be ported to Power PC based Macs. However, some Mac users have been able to successfully run the original RollerCoaster Tycoon on their machines using Virtual PC.
Criticism
Many members of the RollerCoaster Tycoon community were not happy with Frontier Developments taking over for Chris Sawyer for this version. Many people felt that the game was sub-par compared to the first two, even with the addition of 3D graphics and many new gameplay features. Many were also unhappy with the amount of bugs in the game, which included workers getting stuck on railings and the game crashing. A patch is available on a number of sites that fixes the inordinate number of bugs found in the first release (some reviewers, such as PC Gamer, have gone as far as to call the initial release a beta).
There have also been complaints about the very high end graphic cards that are needed to really play the game to its fullest, which many people do not have. The game requires a top-of-the-line graphics card in order to fully render a detailed park without a lot of graphical slowdown. Some people cannot see water, because their graphics card cannot render it. The previous two RCT games did not need expensive graphics cards, making them accessible to more people.
See also
External links
- RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 official site
- RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 for Mac OS X
- RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 at GameSpot
- The RollerCoaster Tycoon Series at MobyGames