I started off last night by going through the tutorials. 2.5 hours later I had gone through most of the tutorials for RCT3 and the Soaked Expansion pack. Admittedly this wouldnt have taken so long had I just tried the original before installing the expansion but there ya go
So....
Another hour later and I have a working rollercoaster. A fairly mediocre affair with a couple of twists and a loop. The worst thing about the designer is that it sometimes has trouble finishing the track for you. You can often find yourself with a bit of track that is slightly higher than the station piece and with no way of connecting the two to complete the track. The auto complete feature can take ages to do it for you cycling through all the available options.
As a first go though it wasnt a bad little thing and riding it in 1st person mode was great!!
So, the rollercoaster designer is extremely detailed but that barely scratches the surface of the game. You can edit fucking EVERYTHING!! From the amount of pickles people are allowed on their burgers all the way up to putting in swimming pools and water flumes designed exactly to your specs.
YOu can test the rides and get readouts for g-forces, nausea ratings, fun and how extreme the ride is along with a whole host of other things.
The graphical detail is lovely but a tad basic up close which is fine when you look at the scale you can build on. You get an emmense build area. REALLY BIG.
The peeps as they are called are a little basic but with literally hundreds of them walking around each with their own name and personality you can allow that. It even carries details such as what each person is holding in their left and right hands as well as whats in their pockets.
You can mould the landscape as you see fit by raising and lowering areas and filling them with water and building waterfalls and all sorts including custom buildings which you build wall by wall.
I wont go into the park management yet as I havent even touched on that myself as I cant yet get over the scale of this game!! You can even edit the little lights that come on when a rollercoaster goes through a tunnel and firework and laser displays and dolphin shows and shit! Theres not enough space on this board to mention it all hahahaha
If you like Micromanagement games and loved Themepark World all those years ago then get this. I would reccomend getting the Soaked Expansion pack too as the water effects are lovely and it fixes some glaring gameplay bugs too.
Top notch! Its like Thempark World 2005 without the annoying scottish twat interrupting you all the damn time.
