Dec 17, 2018 Rollercoaster Tycoon Joyride is the first entry in the iconic coaster building series to offer VR support and you can read our full review right here!
RollerCoaster Tycoon was always meant to be played on a touchscreen. Everyone who spent their weekends hunched over their Windows PC playing the original must have mistakenly tried to adjust coaster height or place the perfect hamburger cart with their fingers at least once or twice, much to the annoyance of anyone else they shared their smudge-stained monitor with. While different versions of RollerCoaster Tycoon has been available for mobile for quite a while now, it’s never been as good as it is with RollerCoaster Tycoon Touch, the first iteration of the game that fully takes advantage of the capabilities of today’s mobile devices.
The most significant upgrade setting RollerCoaster Tycoon touch apart from its predecessors is its graphics. RollerCoaster Tycoon Touch is a far more beautiful and intricate game than RollerCoaster Tycoon World, 3 or 4 for mobile. In fact, it’s so beautiful it even makes bathrooms look pretty. Looking this good doesn’t come without a downside, however. It’s a heavy game, and if you want it to run smoothly, hopefully you’re already working with a newer device. Still, if you’re a diehard RollerCoaster Tycoon fan, this game might just be the reason to go out and get a new phone or tablet.
The second most significant change is the move from scenarios to challenges and card packs. RollerCoaster Tycoon Touch is very much a free-to-play mobile game in this regard. Completing challenges earns you coins, tickets and/or card packs — which are also available via in-app purchase.
Card packs are what unlock new attractions, facilities and decorative features, so getting as many different cards as possible is one of the big keys to success. Doubles are counted towards upgrades, so as frustrating as getting your twelfth joystick arcade in a row might be, it’ll pay off in the end. Tickets are used to purchase card packs in the shop, so make sure to take advantage of every opportunity you’re given to earn them.
Coins are the central in-game currency, and needed to place and upgrade attractions and facilities. Keep a close eye on your coin count because all the cards in the world won’t help you if you don’t have enough cash to do anything. The shops and attractions generate revenue to visiting the game frequently to collect is a good idea.
Another big difference with RollerCoaster Tycoon Touch is just how intuitive its touch controls are. Making a path is no longer a chore: just drag your finger across the screen to build or erase. You can even manipulate the screen as you are path building to make sure you’re not leaving any gaps. Moving a building is as simple as tapping, holding and dragging it to its new location. These perfectly sensitive touch controls make building coasters a breeze, too. For anyone who has ever struggled with closing the loop, the new coaster builder is a godsend.
Together, these changes make for what is easily the best RollerCoaster Tycoon experience since RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 was released back in 2004. The free-to-play nature of the game slows the experience down a bit from the paid versions, but RollerCoaster Tycoon was never really meant as a game to spend every waking minute with (even if that’s what most of us did). Just like a real tycoon, you check in on RollerCoaster Tycoon Touch several times a day for ten minutes at a time, taking care of business so the money starts to roll in on its own. Whether this is your first experience in the RollerCoaster Tycoon universe or your umpteenth, you’ll be feeling like a boss in no time.
| Platforms: | PC |
| Publisher: | Hasbro Interactive, MicroProse |
| Developer: | Chris Sawyer Productions |
| Genres: | Strategy / Business Simulator |
| Release Date: | March 31, 1999 |
| Game Modes: | Singleplayer |
A wildly fun primordial Tycoon game.
After playing RollerCoaster Tycoon for a few hours, you’ll find that the fun is wildly contagious. Unlike other strategy games, RollerCoaster Tycoon, perhaps more befitting its corporate master Hasbro than its actual publisher MicroProse, seems more concerned with surrounding the player in the fun parts of managing an amusement park. As a business simulator / park builder, it succeeds admirably.
As with Sawyer’s previous game Transport Tycoon, RollerCoaster Tycoon is not particularly challenging to win. You can blast through all of the pre-made scenarios without a lot of struggle. Most of their challenges are geographical in nature, as in how do you manage to squeeze another ride into your cramped little park? Unlike Bullfrog’s underachieving Theme Park, a game which RollerCoaster Tycoon can’t help but be compared with, it never forces the player to get bogged down in the minutia of running a park. And while you can design your own rides, the supplied ones are more than adequate (and somewhat less frustrating to use due to the slightly clumsy interface of the ride builder).
Although building the perfect coaster is where you’ll eventually spend the majority of your gaming time, you also have do much more to win. This isn’t just about building rollercoasters, but managing the less glorious minutia of running a fun park – all of which the game manages to integrate. You’ll need to manage foot traffic by creating paths to and from your various rides, balance thrill rides with more casual attractions (Ferris wheels and such), set pricing, and hire mechanics, handymen and security guards. The game is divided into scenarios. Only a few are available in the beginning, but once they’re completed, you get access to the rest.
Presentation wise, the sound effects are superb, with giggles and screams, annoying carousel music, and the clanking of coasters. Visually, RollerCoaster Tycoon is nice and sharp. The ridiculous cartoony graphics do a superb job at conveying a lot of information in a typical windows format. Beautiful details abound on a micro level. Little people run around the park all giddy after getting off a very fun ride, and others stumble and fumble their way around, their faces green with the sickness brought by riding a rollercoaster.
Overall, RollerCoaster Tycoon is the most purely entertaining strategy game in ages, one that’s virtually guaranteed to put a smile on the face of even the most jaded gamer. It’s a wildly exuberant game that reminds us that fun is an honorable goal for any entertainment medium, even one as “serious” as a strategy game.
System Requirements: Pentium 90 MHz, 16 MB RAM, Win 95
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