Platform: PC
Developer: Chris Sawyer Productions
Publisher: Infogrames ( Now Atari, SA )
Release Date: October 15th, 2002
Genre: City Builder, Management Simulation
Nerd Rating: 7 out of 10
Reviewed by: Spekkio

RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 is a single player PC game that simulates the construction and management of theme parks. Similar to the previous release the graphics are 2D and include many of the rides available for construction in the previous game, RollerCoaster Tycoon. It was designed by Chris Sawyer then on to being published at Infogrames Entertainment, now merged with a department of Atari. RCT2 will keep you on the edge of your seat, you won’t want to get up to even use the restroom. I’m very excited to go over the details of RollerCoaster Tycoon 2.

The graphics of the game are basic 2D capable of being used on a PC running Windows 98SE or better. See minimum system requirements below this review if interested. The game’s view is in a isometric perspective.  Lets break that down. The word isometric is actually a greek way of saying “equal measure”, in other words what I’m trying to say is each axis is identical. It allows a view of x, y, and z at the same time. Want an even easier explanation? Okay, Imagine you’re a spider er.. bug in the top corner of the room close to the ceiling. Now looking diagonal to the opposite corner of the room towards the floor.. that’s pretty much isometric projection broken down for you to understand easier. If all else fails RCT2‘s graphic view is similar to the Sim City titles, even the Diablo franchise. RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 uses a grid layout for building your park. Remember Final Fantasy Tactics, or the Front Mission franchise? They used a grid design for battle sequences. Yes, I know you won’t exactly see any battle sequences in this game silly. I was only giving an example of the grid, okay Flynn?

To beat the game you must complete all the objectives in every scenario. The first game made you complete scenarios to unlock more to choose from, however that isn’t the case here. There are many worlds to choose from, including the ability to custom build scenarios of your own. The worlds vary from green grassy fields, mountainous valleys, and many other creative atmospheres. Unlike the first title, RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 has official Six Flags themed items and features you can put into your very own parks. Famous Six Flags parks and Ride Designs are available to your disposal. All the way down to the TVs you can put in the Que lines. The secrets of the trade are many. There’s not really one set method to success. You can get all OCD and place certain things in certain areas, or just plain out build everything everywhere till you can’t build anymore. Keeping the satisfaction of your visitors is a must. Logically you will need bathrooms, food facilities, and staff to take care of your park’s needs. Also different from the first title, you can build ATMs for your customers when they run out of cash. Speaking of cash playing this time around I discovered you can change your currencies from dollars to pounds for example. Alright, ADHD kicking in. There are a few quick money makers for those of you brave and bold enough like me to play this game without a “Trainer”. Max out the cost of Umbrellas for one. When it rains, people will buy the umbrellas no matter the cost. I advise you make the maps free that way no one will get lost in your park. Place your food places in various parts of the park. Make sure to place benches and trash cans along the paths near these facilities.

The custom ride design feature is pretty fun to mess around with. You can build your own roller coasters, then test them without worry of hurting your park rating and money. There is also a tutorial available in this feature as well. You can even bring your custom designs from the first game into this title. You can also use the designs you’ve made on RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 and bring them over to the third installment of this franchise called RollerCoaster Tycoon 3.

RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 varied from the first title in many ways. Not only did you have new visual features, but behind the scenes too. The programming behind the gravity, speed, and test results of custom designs was majorly improved. Along with being able to custom build scenery and rides a lot more user friendly like. This title even comes with a whole In-game-live tutorial. You can even upload custom scenery items. Another added feature was the ‘bulldozer’. This allows the user to delete multiple scenery items which came to be a real pain in the first release.

The sounds are pretty amazing, you can add music to any and all your rides. I don’t advise that though, you’ll get an instant headache between all the crowds, people throwing up, and every ride playing music. You can put any song of your choice though. You can have two custom tracks added to the selections in the music drop down box of choices. You can’t use mp3 files though, you may need to research how to do this, but you need to convert your file to a 16 bit wave file. The environmental sounds are pretty creative. You can hear all the chatter and laughter of your guests in the more congested areas of the park, even the screams from the roller coasters.

There are two expansion packs available, Wacky Worlds. Wacky Worlds concentrates on adding themes and scenery items including different park entrances. Then there is the second expansion, Time Twister. This expansion is similar to Wacky Worlds, but with various Time related items and rides. These expansion have all been consolidated to a triple pack version called, Triple Thrill Pack.

Alright, well I didn’t want to reveal this. However, many of you may already know this. There are some pretty cruel features, or things you can do in this game. For starters, you can charge people to use the restroom. As financially helpful that may sound, it’s not exactly right. You may even lose guests over this decision. You can design “powered launch” roller coasters that do not require the hill to build speed which you can create rides like the “Giant Inverted Boomerang” or better known by Six Flag’s named Goliath, or Déjà Vu and intentionally not finish the track thus selecting the launch speed really high and filling the seats with guests. Guess what happens next? Yup you kill them. Pretty violent eh? Sometimes rides will randomly crash and kill some people, if that happens to me during play I usually destroy the ride and leave one or two pieces, then build a fancy fence with some flowers and just call it a memorial of some sort. Noble? Okay, off subject yet again. Not only can you kill them with rides, but you can drown them. My sister would build a private island and place pissed off guests on it to keep them from leaving. She’d eventually build stuff to keep them occupied and slowly build their happiness back. Any how, I give the game a nice 7 out of 10. It was always fun to play growing up, especially since I didn’t have the luxuries of internet in my room. Probably for good reason though, but I will keep this G rated the best I can.

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Minimum System Requirements:
CPU/Processor: Intel Pentium III / AMD Athlon XP 1500+
Video Card Required: Nvidia GeForce 6100 / ATI Radeon 7000 64mb
Minimum RAM (Memory): 32 MB
Hard Drive Space Required: 250 MB
DirectX Version Needed: 9 ( Included on disk )