RollerCoaster Tycoon® Deluxe

If you handed me a six foot wide blueprint paper and a pencil, I'd sooner wear the pencil to dust than design a safe and operational roller coaster. If you put me in front of a computer with a mouse and keyboard, and load up Roller Coaster Tycoon, within a matter of minutes I'll have a ride equally unsafe and borderline inoperable up and ready to (try and) go. Unlike reality, the several dozen digital park-goers who meet their doom on my ride to hell won't put a red flag on my reputation in life. I'll simply load up another map and try again. Roller Coaster Tycoon presents us all with the ability to create the most deadly, the most terrifying, or (if you're looking for virtual business success) the most thrilling roller coaster we can dream up. It is simple as picking the type of coaster you want, be it wooden, steel, stand-up, or sit-down, and clicking into place the pieces you want. Loops, drops, climbs, and corkscrews are all available with the click of a few buttons, and the more dedicated designers can send their tracks through tunnels or even intertwine them with other rides. There are a wide variety of maps available for play, each with their own set of objectives to meet, usually along the lines of reaching a certain park rating by a certain year. As your theme park thrives, more people will enter your park, and the more people that enter, the more virtual dollars you'll rake in. These you can spend on expanding your park with additional rides, such as Merry-Go-Rounds, Ferris Wheels, or (my personal favorite) the Scrambler. Those wishing to go a little more in-depth towards the business end can choose various marketing campaigns for their park, set individual prices for rides and food stands, and select their focus of research and development. But make no mistake, Roller Coaster Tycoon has a greater focus on creativity than it does on representing a realistic business model, and that's where it shines. My only true gripe with the game is that when building a roller coaster, if you end up (like I often do) creating a ride far too intense for anyone to ride, or you simply wish to change a small section of tracks, it can be a hassle to cycle through each and every piece and make sure everything is properly lined up. I tend to find it easier just to demolish and rebuild my coaster from scratch, than to attempt fixing or changing it. All said and done, I highly recommend that anyone who missed this gem of nineties gaming to spend the $5.99, and acquaint themselves with the roller coaster architect hiding inside. For those of you like me, who spent many an hour in their youth delicately constructing their park (after homework), I also highly recommend that you spend the $5.99, and reacquaint yourself with a classic.

When RCT came out in '99 I was 13. I wasn't much of a PC gamer (was into the Civilization series) but after reading about RCT it sounded awesome and right up my alley. I was into building and managing pixels so I figured I'd give it a try...once I got the money from my parents of course :). I figured if I was able to conquer the world in Civ I was able to build sweet parks in RCT. Now I don't remember too much specifics from back in the day, but I know I instantly became addicted to the original. One of my favorite things to do was to build cool entrances that typically involved water, statues, bridges, trees, and gardens. It wasn't necessary but that was my thing. When I found out about GOG nearly two years ago the first game I looked up was RCT. Not only was it available but it was the Deluxe version. The original AND the two expansions. Sold! So here we are, a 30-something year-old playing RCT. Yea I ain't embarrassed to admit it. I might not play it as much as a 13-year old, but the game still lives up to the hype and is a classic. When I first got back into playing I would flip between the original and expansions. At first I was not into creating my own coasters but slowly gained an interest. It can be time consuming but I've become a big fan. I took a break from the game and just recently got back into the swing of things. The interface and functionality of the game has always been very simple. Working underground can be difficult at times and is something I personally don't bother with, despite it being helpful when crammed into small spaces. The Power Launch and Reverse Incline coasters are a staple to just about every park I build. There is nearly an endless of options you have to influence. Pricing, marketing, construction, employee tasks, landscaping, it's all fascinating. I really enjoy being hands on in all that good stuff. Sometimes, however, the length of your goal hinders that. Still, though, it's a gem of a game.

I (and my sisters) played this game like crazy when we were kids. When I found out that it was available for download I was super excited to play it again. The download process was pretty easy with only one hiccup that I was able to troubleshoot and solve through this site. It was as addicting as I remembered. The sounds, the coasters, even the opening game music all came rushing back to my delight. BUT After having this game for months, in the past few weeks the Loopy Landscapes portion of parks are not being remembered as completed. I complete a park and the game records it for a few days and opens a new park. THEN, it forgets and resets everything. So I am stuck with only the starting opened parks for that section of play and am unable to advance into new parks. The complete parks are even still saved games that I can go back into but the game itself forgets that I have completed them somehow. So until I somewhere somehow have a solution--the game remains awesome but . . . .

So this is a review of the soundtrack which I bought along with the game! Don't get me wrong; RCT is an amazing game. I played it extensively; the first time, my progress through the scenarios would be obstructed by the release of RCT2. The second and third times, by getting a new OS which it didn't run on. Now there are several alternative coaster games, successors, which I might play instead. But what's even more amazing is the soundtrack of "fairground" style music. The main RCT theme is probably the greatest work of Allister Brimble, and quite likely the most famous. I used to load the game and leave the title screen running just to listen to it. I kept wanting to quit out of the gameplay just to hear the theme music again. The other tracks by Allister Brimble (with different themes to go with different theme park "concepts" like Space, Spooky, etc.,) are also so lovely that I would build rides and watch them just to listen to the music. The 11 Merry-Go-Round tunes are equally excellent. No other rollercoaster game has ever approached the quality of this music. Although I've bought the game at least twice before, this time I wanted a nice clean "album" copy of the soundtrack, to listen to while doing other things. The price is cheap for a music album, so I bought the GOG copy just for the clean copy of the *gorgeous* Allister Brimble soundtrack, which does not seem to be sold elsewhere (and I certainly want to give the creators royalties for it). I recommend buying the game for the soundtrack even if you don't have time to play the game! :-)

THE best sim/city/park builder ever made. For me, that is. It has never been surpassed, not even with several sequels. I always enjoyed the 2D style, before the half-assed 3D entries in the series. This is just pure park-building bliss, and if you enjoy any kind of building-sim game (CMS), you will very likely enjoy this. It's not overly complicated like SimCity, but absolutely not without depth or strategy. I always found this to be the perfect balance for me.