RollerCoaster Tycoon 3

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RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, a third iteration of the RollerCoaster Tycoon series, was released in November 2004. The game marks the series' shift to fully 3D graphics, doing away with the isometric views of the previous 2 games. One of the most notable additions to RCT3 is the ability for players to 'ride' their own creations. The game also includes full lighting effects and day-night cycles, creation of fireworks displays, and the use of custom music tracks for in-game sound and music on rides. The guests have been significantly improved on those of RollerCoaster Tycoon 2, with enhanced AI, appearance variation, and the ability of guests to be grouped together into families, dates, and other types of groups.

The game also allows making WMV recordings inside the game. With a cheat code allowing viewing the park using first-person view from a guest), this allows machinima movies to be made as if the video is taken inside the park.

Although RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 is based primarily on the previous two games, Chris Sawyer himself was only involved at a 'consulting' level and was not one of the programmers. A patch is available on a number of sites that fixes the inordinate number of bugs found in the first release (some reviewers, such as PC Gamer, have gone as far as to call the initial release a beta).

Contents

1 Gameplay
2 Expansions

2.1 Mac OS X

3 Controversy
4 See also
5 External links

5.1 Fansites

Gameplay

In Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, guests are called "peeps." There are also VIPeeps (Very Important Peeps) that need to be satisfied. There is also a peep designer, allowing the player to design family and friends. Coaster and scenario designers were also included.

This time around, as requested by fans for years, sandbox mode has been added. It allows players to create their own amusement park without money limits, ride limits, or objectives. Returning to the third game in the series is the "career" mode. Players still need to complete scenarios to unlock others, but this time around, there are 3 sets of goals (or difficulties) for each scenario that need to be completed. Completing every scenario at a particular difficulty level will open up a bonus scenario.

Fireworks were also a new feature in RCT3. Players can use premade displays, or create their own. Landscaping and adding water were also enhanced, and dozens of different coaster types were added. The rides are divided into different categories, including thrill rides and gentle rides.

For the first time in the series, players can rotate the view of the park 360 degrees, including rotating and zooming in and out. The food stalls are all different, and many are themed to fit into themed areas or a themed park. The same applies to certain rides. There are five main themes (not including expansion): Adventure, Spooky, Western, SciFi, and Generic.

Expansions

The first expansion pack for RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, called Soaked!, was released on June 21, 2005. It features new rides and attractions as well as water-themed parks. Other features include swimming pools, flumes, fountains, diving boards, hot tubs, showers and lounge chairs. Also included were water shows with dolphins and killer whales, allowing the creation of parks similar to SeaWorld. Overall, there are an additional 50 new rides, including White Water Rapids and Giant Flume. Improvements to the interface were also made. The scroller on the mouse can now be used to scroll down a list of rides and attractions. Previously, the scrollbar was the only option. Many bugs present were also fixed when Soaked! is installed.

The second expansion, Wild!, featured animal enclosures and safari-like attractions. It was released on October 25, 2005.

Mac OS X

RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 has been ported to Mac OS X. Earlier versions of the game however have not been ported, and due to heavy dependencies on the X86 platform (being that Chris Sawyer games are written assembly language) it is unlikely that they will be able to be ported to Power PC based Macs. However, some Mac users have been able to successfully run the original RollerCoaster Tycoon on their machines using Virtual PC.

Controversy

Many members of the RollerCoaster Tycoon community were not happy with Frontier Developments taking over for Chris Sawyer for this version. Many people felt that the game was developed poorly, featured an outrageous number of bugs, that it didn't have a good variety of new rides, and that Frontier didn't listen to the community on some aspects of the game.

Some people did, however, defend Frontier Developments' work on the game by pointing out that Chris Sawyer rarely participated in or listened to the community, and saying that he would've most likely kept the game 2D, such as RollerCoaster Tycoon 2.

External links

Fansites

RollerCoaster Tycoon games
RollerCoaster Tycoon \| RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 \| RollerCoaster Tycoon 3

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