Theme Park (Nintendo DS) Review

Looking at the original game from over a decade ago and comparing it aesthetically to this one you can hardly see a difference as the team as EA Japan decided to stick with the template and not tinker too much in order to keep more of its authenticity. However, on the small screen everything looks far sharper than on a large PC monitor or TV, so straight away the lively little punters that wander round your park appear visually improved and the animated rides all come to life with much more character than ever before thanks to the sharp DS screen. Character is what helped this game in the past and it certainly has not lost any of it in this updated edition. On top of this, EA has thrown in some very tasty FMV sequences and spruced up the soundtrack to keep the atmosphere just how it should be at a thriving Theme Park.

Just like with point and click adventures from the PC, simulation games were a particular genre that many thought would be ideally suited to the Nintendo DS, but failed to make any appearance in the system's first year. The main one to hit the portable was Zoo Tycoon, which is hailed as a complete disaster and even games like The Sims have not been executed properly. Thankfully, though, the touch-screen has been put to great use for Theme Park with movement around the park, selection of staff and rides, as well as all the important decisions being all just a simple click away, making for the ultimate in intuitive gameplay control and ease of park management for even complete newcomers to the genre.

Your aim is to build up the best theme park ever, providing visitors with exciting rides, a wide range of facilities, pleasant surroundings, enough food and drink, as well as ensuring the maintenance and security levels do not drop to such a low standard that you are seen as being extremely unreliable...All of this must be juggled whilst trying your best to turn a healthy profit and yet not anger your clientele by hiking up prices to extortionate amounts. Thankfully there is an option to be hand-led through a basic training stage where the rudimentary features of park running are taught, with guidelines and special tips and tricks offered up to help you on your way to taking on the full responsibility of the park.

To start with you must strike the right balance between exciting rides (haunted houses, snake slides, tea-cup rides, large roller-coasters, and so on), amenities (ice cream huts, drink stands, fast-food joints) and path networks. The various options available for you on the lower screen let you check on what visitors want, whether prices are too high or low in their opinion, if they are confused and need appropriate signage around the park, and various other statistics. You can also keep a close eye on your finances, pour money into new research for rides, take out loans with the bank and invest in stocks. At times it may seem very confusing because you are in essence running a full-time business, not merely playing around with park creation. However, this is what helps to ensure Theme Park does not grow old very quickly.

As with SimCity, just playing around with the construction element would become mundane after a while, therefore the business and maintenance side picks up the slack as you hire more staff within the park to entertain people waiting, tidy up the park and attend to broken down rides; amend the length of queuing space to stop visitors growing bored; bump up the salt levels in fries and water down drinks to such a degree that you get the most gain without losing custom; and so on and so forth. Staff may need to literally be man-handled when they become lazy, rides can be shut-down for manual repair or sped-up to increase the fun factor and one-way path systems can prevent visitors simply wandering aimlessly around. And this sort of management can keep you enthralled for weeks. However, sadly, considering this is indeed based on such an old PC game, the appeal can wear thin in the long-term as there are no extra goals included (such as building up visitor numbers to a certain level to open up new aspects of the game). There is the inclusion of a wireless link-up where players can visit each other's parks, but it is rather limited and seems quite pointless really. Saying this, however, it is true testament to the game's original design that it has survived this long and remains so engrossing!