Along with The Sims, RollerCoaster Tycoon
has appeared regularly on the North American sales
charts for the past few years. The SimCity-style
gameplay combined with the inherent fun of designing an
amusement park has drawn in millions of players, and
Infogrames hopes that the upcoming sequel, appropriately
named RollerCoaster Tycoon 2, becomes just as
successful. As such, the game won't be significantly
different from the original in terms of core gameplay,
but it will feature a host of new scenarios, a refined
graphics engine, and some slight tweaks to the gameplay
that should make the game a little easier to get into.
Upon starting RollerCoaster Tycoon 2, you'll see different tabs that define the difficulty of each scenario. For example, under beginner parks, you'll see a scenario that explains that you've just inherited a castle, and the plan is to build an amusement park around it. Since it's a beginner park, the objectives for this particular scenario are relatively easy--they only require you to reach a certain attendance level and maintain a constant flow of money. You'll also see a tab for real parks. In this option, you'll find RollerCoaster Tycoon 2's representations of real-world amusement parks like Six Flags Magic Mountain in Southern California. Naturally, the objectives for the real parks can be a little more difficult to fulfill than some of the others since they require you not only to maintain the park, but also to build missing attractions, repair broken rides, and get enough money so that you can pay off a loan to the bank in time.
Along with the real parks and other features, a few general enhancements will be made to the game, the most drastic of which will be the increased map size. The parks in RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 can now cover a 256x256 area, which is almost twice the size of the original game. But in most cases, you initially won't have access to the extra space because you won't actually own the land to begin with. One of your main tasks in RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 is to purchase additional real estate so that you can expand your park, build more attractions, and pull in even more people. Likewise, the altitude barrier has also been raised, allowing for even grander roller coasters and major attractions, like huge observation towers.
|
|
With so much more area and greater detail afforded by the revamped graphics engine, RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 may seem a little overwhelming at first, especially for players who haven't played the original game, but the development team has also made a series of improvements to general park management that should make the process of constructing and managing a park a little easier. This includes changes to landscape deformation and item placement within the scenery and different views so that you can get a better look at specific aspects of the park.
