Review: Sim Theme Park
Every once and awhile, I start up a new computer game for the first time and am simply blown away. It happened the first time I played Wing Commander, as well as when I booted up Doom. It happened was when I downloaded and ran the Quake Test on my Pentium 90. It's been quite some time since I've experienced that feeling, the unique sense of giddiness and excitement, where a game absorbs me completely and I look up from the dim of the computer monitor and its four in the morning. However, thanks to UK's BullFrog Entertainment, I am happily getting less sleep: Sim Theme Park is perhaps the finest game I have ever played.
Now, before I start raving about this new game, the sequel (or perhaps, "improvement" is a better term) to BullFrog's own 1994 title, "Theme Park", a bit of disclosure: As those of you who read my review of MicroProse's Rollercoaster Tycoon a few months ago know, I am a rollercoaster fanatic. As of a few summers ago, I had ridden every coaster on the East coast, and am a card-carrying member of the American Coaster Enthusiasts (ACE). And like I said in that review, if a new computer game is even remotely related to rollercoasters, I'll be running to that computer store the same way I do to the nearby amusement park on opening day. So, needless to say, I have been anticipating Sim Theme Park for some time.
That said, let's get down to the review. "Sim Theme Park" (released as "Theme Park World" in the UK), is, as I said above, essentially an upgrade to 1994's "Theme Park", a "God Game", the genre defined by the immediate classic SimCity. As you may guess, in both games the objective is to build a theme park, complete with rides, paths, stores, games, and the all-important bathrooms, hire employees (security guards, entertainers, repair men, researchers, and the all-important janitors). A main caveat of mine in the original was that the game could sometimes be too complex, requiring the player to coordinate dozens of tasks simultaneously, including setting ticket prices, researching new rides, managing finances, and even dispatching repair men to fix broken down rides). Thankfully, in Sim Theme Park, many of the same tasks are done for you automatically, with an improved and simplified interface (all of the important menus like Research and Employees are accessible by a one-letter hotkey). Also added in the 1999 version is an "instant action" mode for those new to the game and who don't want to deal with the more complex aspects.
Latest Articles