Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 sem dúvidas foi o primeiro jogo que me cativou pela primeira vez, tinha uns cinco anos na época, e jogar esse jogo na visão de uma criança era incrível! Aprendi o que é empréstimo e como poupar dinheiro apenas jogando R.C.T kkkkj. Já também joguei o R.C.T 2 e é tão incrível quando o primeiro, mas mesmo assim o primeiro fica em meu coração por ser o primeiro jogo que me cativou.
Enfim, Open RCT2 nada mais é que um mod que faz o R.C.T 2 funcionar nos computadores modernos, sem contar que você pode jogar todos os mapas do R.C.T 1 dentro desse mod, apenas tem que ter o primeiro e o segundo jogo instalado em sua máquina para que esse mod funcione.
Como fã tenho orgulho de ter conhecido esse mod e sua comunidade de fãs que amam essa franquia. Além disso, fico mais feliz ainda por descobrir que o compositor original do primeiro e do segundo jogo compôs uma nova música exclusivamente para esse mod (caso fiquem curiosos esse é o link para ouvir a música no Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve6PJHNbFzs). Parabéns a todos os envolvidos com esse projeto que ainda recebe atualizações até hoje. Ótimo trabalho!

Obs.: ainda não zerei todos os mapas do primeiro e do segundo jogo, caso eu consiga fazer essa proeza, vou marca que terei "zerado o jogo", caso contrário vou deixar como "não finalizados, mas finalizarei em um futuro breve", como minha opinião sobre esse mod não irá mudar tão cedo, vou deixar já registrada minha review sobre ele.

Aesthetically speaking, a roller coaster is a pretty stark thing. Disney, for all its terrifying power, needs an entire platoon of chain-smoking Imagineers and millions of dollars to make you forget that you’re only looking at 1) a bunch of supports and 2) the thing being supported. The original RCT1 and 2 are unique among sims of the era: Maxis games of the time have similarly endless warrens of detail for the devoted player, but Will Wright’s verve pales in comparison to Chris Sawyer’s knowledge of what elements ought to be spotlighted or relegated to the background. (Sawyer hand-coding RCT in assembly language will remain a top 10 technical achievement in video games for decades to come.) Years of refinement by modders have only made Rollercoaster Tycoon more of what it’s always been: nothing more than a bunch of supports and the thing being supported, more than enough to dominate the skyline.

WELCOME TO HELL PARK, FUCKERS!
EAT OUR OVERCHARGED SLOP!
RIDE OUR NEVERENDING RIDES!
GET LOST IN OUR NON-EUCLIDEAN MAZE!
NEVER LEAVE... OR ELSE!

Music highlight. Estimated read time: 3~ minutes for OpenRCT2, 3~ minutes for venting. lol.

"Do I put my review on RollerCoaster Tycoon 1 or RollerCoaster Tycoon 2? And which version..." I don't know why I fretted over this when I played the entirety of both base games via OpenRCT2. It's also with this that I break my oldest "running gag" (implying it's funny) with this account, which is that I'm always playing RollerCoaster Tycoon 2; by unmarking it as "playing" and replacing that status with this. More on this later.

I could gush endlessly about RollerCoaster Tycoon 1 & 2; they're in my mind the best jumping-off point for getting into management games, which in turn would make the entry into things like RTS easier for many. They're not without their flaws, though; I'll knock those out immediately. The most obvious one is that many things aren't explained to the player, but 95% of the time they are shown; the remaining 5% can ruin your scenario play, though, such as guest weight or ride requirements to avoid stat penalties... wait, hold on, don't go anywhere, I know that sounded like nerd shit... okay, it kind of is, but it's not that involved, I swear. "Learning" these games is incredibly easy if you observe interactions; though one plugin/mod I see people use is automatic price manager, and I personally think it takes a lot out of the game; you can find out how much you can sell something for by simply raising the price until people stop buying, or the inverse by lowering until people start buying. I mention this interaction specifically because this is how most things go with the game; if you're not sure, just do something and observe; it's not a particularly obtuse game except in some edge cases. That said, I'll recommend some very basic plugins for OpenRCT2 that help immensely with onboarding; they do not make the game easier, they just integrate relevant information that you would be wiki diving for in the first place.

Where these games shine is in the sheer player expression they allow for completing the scenarios, or in ride recreation, or scenery/decor, just general theming. The scenario difficulty scales fairly linearly in RCT1 with enough wiggle room to allow most players to not only learn but also express themselves (reasonably; don't spam too much or you'll go broke!). RCT2 had the problem of inexplicably ordering scenarios within each difficulty category alphabetically, meaning for many, they had an arduous first scenario in the form of Crazy Castle, which more experienced players almost unanimously agree should’ve been placed in Intermediate rather than Beginner anyways. OpenRCT2 now defaults to a difficulty sorting for RCT2's scenarios I believe, which essentially everyone recommends. Of course, this is mostly irrelevant if you played one or the other to completion and then started on the others' scenarios, as you'd already be accustomed to it, but it's yet another tweak OpenRCT2 makes that improves the experience for everyone.

...

"More on this later.": There is a weird fetishism from the more.. "niche" side of game review/criticism/analysis, a patriotic sense of obligation and pride in always playing, reviewing, and talking about The Original Version of something, often knowing full well that better versions of the game exist, and to not just make it a matter of preference but to actively disregard or dissuade playing games or such projects. To a degree, I felt this rub off on me from about 2015-2018 when I started collecting retro consoles like the PlayStation 3 and my dozens-long list of CRTs (essay on this some other time)
This isn't wholly unjustified, however, as for years and still going, many gamers will wholesale write off anything older than them as being outdated and not worth playing. In the case of OpenRCT2 all it really does is make the game playable on modern operating systems with the utmost basic quality-of-life changes (such as raising and lowering single tile placements without having to adjust the terrain first; things people far more into the game back in the day would enable tile editor for anyways, or one more significant, immensely helpful thing; but I'll let you see if you can figure out what that is in my playthrough of Micro Park. (timestamped to nudge you closer to it)

Somewhere along the way, I feel like the relatively young medium of video games skipped from being underbaked to overcooked in their analyses; a lack of brevity and/or concision, often over-analyzing every minute gameplay interaction for seemingly no reason other than to point out that they notice these things exist. It really shouldn't be warranted as a baseline component to a review unless you're clarifying something in active debate; most of it comes off as petulant bickering for little reason other than wilful disengagement.
To make matters worse, it's often coated with almost twice as much wordage trying to justify its position in the first place, as if the opinion piece of a cold, pessimistic burnout─the alphabet soup concocted in a flurry with more passion than any second given to the actual piece being discussed─ever needed one to begin with. It's just an opinion, after all. But maybe that's what's most upsetting from that perspective? That it is just that, and even if influential to a degree most can only dream of, still ultimately means little towards swaying the perception of the object of discussion.

O hypocrite that I am, for herein lies borderline word salad lamenting such an angle in the first place; oh well. It all wraps around to being fetishistic about things deemed historically significant, assigning them prestige and sacrality to be both immune from criticism and ammunition against that which deviates even a little.
Perhaps a more concentrated example is the inconsistency in perception around Minecraft (2009), specifically ""old"" Minecraft, where a very loud minority decry the game as having fallen off, being altered too much, etc.; the inconsistency of when it fell off would be hilarious if it weren't so depressing and laden with real-time demonstrations of parroting and a density of nostalgia bias so immense it makes Ocarina of Time look like a contrarian's pick. A defense of the old does not need to be propped up with slander of the new; that's just conservatism for video game art hoes.

Video games died in 1999, they'll say, which is news to me, but if that's true, then I'm pretty happy playing whatever this software is called from 2002, 2012, and 2022 as well.


Where to buy RollerCoaster Tycoon 1: GOG or Steam
Where to buy RollerCoaster Tycoon 2: GOG or Steam
OpenRCT2 project, for playing the games on modern operating systems: OpenRCT2
Launcher/updater for OpenRCT2/OpenLoco: OpenLauncher
Recommended OpenRCT2 plugins: Stat Requirement Checklist, Live Ride Measurements, Park Rating Inspector.

How do you make a masterpiece like RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 even better? You open-source remake it, of course! This game adds tons of features that makes the game even better, like adjustable speed and ride refurbishing.

To any prospective players, please note this: Unlike OpenTTD, you do need the files from the original game, as there hasn't been a free graphics pack made yet. Luckily, the original game goes for tuppence on GOG, so I recommend getting it from there (helps there's no DRM too).