Review: Sim Theme Park
Sim Theme Park is one of those games that you sit down with the intention of playing for a few minutes, but end up spending hours glued to your screen. The object of the game is simple enough - build a theme park - but there are enough bells and whistles to keep your interest for a long time.
The game begins with a cute rendered introduction that properly sets the mood of the game, which is lighthearted and cutesy. You are then greeted by the Advisor, who, throughout the course of the game, will explain what all the little buttons and windows mean. While he's helpful at first, he does become very annoying very quickly, but fortunately you can turn him off.
Once you enter your name, you can choose between Instant Action and Full Simulation modes. They're essentially the same, but Instant Action starts you off in the middle of things with a small premade park, whereas Full Simulation lets you start from scratch.
Following that, you get to pick the theme of your park - no pun intended. You can theoretically choose between four themes: Lost World, Halloween Land, Wonder Land, and Outer Space, but only the first two are available to you at the beginning of a game. You can unlock the other two by collecting golden keys.
This is what separates Sin Theme Park other games, such as Sim City. You are given one key at the beginning of the game, and the pursuit of additional golden keys gives you a goal, and motivates you to keep on playing.
So how does one get these golden keys? By collecting golden tickets, of course! You are awarded a golden ticket whenever you accomplish certain amazing feats. For example, you usually get your first ticket when you get 100 people into your park for the first time. You can also get tickets for earning certain amounts of money in one month, or for researching really cool things, or maintaining a high level of customer happiness, or... well, there are many different ways of earning tickets, and I haven't found them all yet.
Every three tickets you collect gets you a golden key. Now, you don't have to actually possess three tickets, you just have to earn them. This becomes important to remember since you can use your tickets to purchase mystery rides, which tend to be really cool attractions that draw in lots of visitors.
Latest Articles