Pros: Rollercoaster construction in Rollercoaster Tycoon is, ironically, not filled with highs and lows! It's all HIGHS baby! The satisfaction of building a successful coaster is great, but then again, so is the high of building an unsuccessful coaster, as you proceed to watch them crash and burn in glorious fashion!
Roller Coaster Tycoon is a fantastic management sim game, not just for building coasters with the finesse and fun of a Lego or K'nex set, but also entire theme parks filled with a diverse set of rides and attractions for entertaining loads of guests, who in turn, will tell you just how much they're enjoying your park, through their words that you can check in on, or by the vomit they leave on the park grounds! Or if you don't hear from them, they might be DEAD!! Yeah, these rides can be dangerous and harm the parks reputation, so you'll definitely be motivated to create and customize a theme park that everyone can enjoy! Customization options are wonderful, as you work on an isometric angled landmass, where you can alter the terrain in any height and in any fashion, you can place paths and objects in any way you desire, changing colors, names, or adding signs and what have you, to theme rides and the park itself to your heart's content, and it feels GREAT! Of course, the rollercoasters are the star of the show, and they're incredibly fun to watch after you've built them, with pretty nice pre-rendered visuals for the day, to make everything pop with a bit more dimensionality. Sometimes I'd just sit and scroll through my park, not adding anything, and just have fun watching the whole machine in full operation, one that you can be proud of building. Highly addictive and satisfying game, one of the greatest PC sim management games of all time, most definitely.
Cons: Some UI hiccups here and there, like windows popping up endlessly that need to be closed manually, or trying to delete an object on a slope with the isometric point of view can be tricky. But what bothered me as a kid when playing the game, was that you couldn't ride the rollercoasters yourself, which, to be fair, you can't do that in a game that doesn't use real 3D visuals, you're stuck in that isometric angle, which, fine. It's still a joy to watch the coasters zip and zoom along their tracks from afar anyway. In any case, these were issues addressed in later games in the series, but the simplicity of the first Rollercoaster Tycoon, and its genius glitch-free programming by Chris Sawyer, makes for a seamless experience that you can't help but smile while playing in its sandbox.
What it means to me: One afternoon, my brother and I stumbled upon someone playing this game, and we both were all "WHAT IS THAT??" and we had to ask for a turn at the computer, and just go to town. We were instantly hooked, and luckily, later in the year on Christmas, we were gifted Rollercoaster Tycoon at a, get this, church banquet, what a WIN!! Praise the lord!! This game shot up to the top of most played PC games relatively quickly, outdoing SimCity 2000. Theme parks are fun, we loved Six Flags as kids (hell, still enjoy it), and of course love coasters, there's no way a kid ain't gonna love this one. What more can be said, it's a thrill!
Roller Coaster Tycoon is a fantastic management sim game, not just for building coasters with the finesse and fun of a Lego or K'nex set, but also entire theme parks filled with a diverse set of rides and attractions for entertaining loads of guests, who in turn, will tell you just how much they're enjoying your park, through their words that you can check in on, or by the vomit they leave on the park grounds! Or if you don't hear from them, they might be DEAD!! Yeah, these rides can be dangerous and harm the parks reputation, so you'll definitely be motivated to create and customize a theme park that everyone can enjoy! Customization options are wonderful, as you work on an isometric angled landmass, where you can alter the terrain in any height and in any fashion, you can place paths and objects in any way you desire, changing colors, names, or adding signs and what have you, to theme rides and the park itself to your heart's content, and it feels GREAT! Of course, the rollercoasters are the star of the show, and they're incredibly fun to watch after you've built them, with pretty nice pre-rendered visuals for the day, to make everything pop with a bit more dimensionality. Sometimes I'd just sit and scroll through my park, not adding anything, and just have fun watching the whole machine in full operation, one that you can be proud of building. Highly addictive and satisfying game, one of the greatest PC sim management games of all time, most definitely.
Cons: Some UI hiccups here and there, like windows popping up endlessly that need to be closed manually, or trying to delete an object on a slope with the isometric point of view can be tricky. But what bothered me as a kid when playing the game, was that you couldn't ride the rollercoasters yourself, which, to be fair, you can't do that in a game that doesn't use real 3D visuals, you're stuck in that isometric angle, which, fine. It's still a joy to watch the coasters zip and zoom along their tracks from afar anyway. In any case, these were issues addressed in later games in the series, but the simplicity of the first Rollercoaster Tycoon, and its genius glitch-free programming by Chris Sawyer, makes for a seamless experience that you can't help but smile while playing in its sandbox.
What it means to me: One afternoon, my brother and I stumbled upon someone playing this game, and we both were all "WHAT IS THAT??" and we had to ask for a turn at the computer, and just go to town. We were instantly hooked, and luckily, later in the year on Christmas, we were gifted Rollercoaster Tycoon at a, get this, church banquet, what a WIN!! Praise the lord!! This game shot up to the top of most played PC games relatively quickly, outdoing SimCity 2000. Theme parks are fun, we loved Six Flags as kids (hell, still enjoy it), and of course love coasters, there's no way a kid ain't gonna love this one. What more can be said, it's a thrill!