As always, a huge shoutout to the people over at Frontier for hooking me up with a review copy of this one. I have waited many years to play this one but I never really had the chance. That all changed though when they announced the console version.
For those that don’t know the idea here is to build a fully functional and profitable amusement park. You will do this by creating paths, building rides, hiring and firing staff and even setting prices for tickets, food and drinks and even a quick way to skip through lines faster.
Graphically the game is beautiful. From lighting, down to the explosions. Yes I did say explosions. More on that later however. The lighting changes as the day goes on with shadows from trees and umbrellas moving appropriately. It is very well done and it isn’t often I say this, it felt good to turn them off. I mean that as a compliment by the way since I once spent about 10 minutes messing tables so the shade would look right on paths.
I won’t talk about the story because bluntly there really isn’t one and nobody should expect one. That being said if you enjoy the idea of micro managing the building options you are going to be in heaven. Don’t panic, there are easily hundreds of pre-made options to choose from. There is no lack of coasters , shops and rides. But the things you can design are nothing short of amazing. Beautiful coasters, entire malls and shopping districts, piece by pain steaking piece.
All of that means very little if the game doesn’t function well though and many times PC games don’t come over to console very well. Truth be told while the controls aren’t perfect and I can see where a mouse would make building a bit more precise I didn’t have any issues. Frontier honestly really managed to nail the controls here, which in recent years thankfully is something many have managed to do successfully.
As for my final score here, I have to say I was ready for this to be a complete wreck. Which there is actually a trophy for doing by the way. Build a coaster, and create a coaster that involves around 300 guest I believe it was. Yes, your coasters aren’t automatically successful. You need to worry about gravity, will they make them sick? Do they even enjoy it? Do you even care to finish it and instead want to launch them up into the air? Not that anyone would do that. Anyway, this game is aa 9/10 for me. Any fan of this type of game really needs to give this one a go, and buy the DLC, it adds some cool rides and such. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Savior Gaming 