Some people, like John Ivers of Indiana, have the guts and ingenuity to build a working rollercoaster in their back yard. For most folks, however, coaster construction is limited to virtual worlds, and Nintendo fans can soon join the fun if Atari and developer n-Space deliver on their recent announcement: Rollercoaster Tycoon is coming to 3DS.
Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 is one of my top 3 favorite games; its lifelike physics and charming sprite graphics took me on a mini-vacation every time I booted it up. And, unlike some players (who posted YouTube videos of their wildest crashes and intentionally drowned their customers), I took my role as park manager very seriously and considered the level “failed” if I had a single fatality on my watch. I even named all my guards, mechanics, entertainers and janitors. Yeah, I’m a geek.
The 3DS RCT game will be a brand new, built-from-scratch edition. It will include staff management, multiple themes, the coaster creator and sandbox mode. For me, and for most RCT fans, however, the game will live or die based on its physics. Unlike its closest competitor, Theme Park (ugh!), RCT’s best feature has always been its coaster construction tools and the realistic rides that spring from it. In RCT, if your coaster doesn’t get from the top of the lift hill back to the station on gravity and momentum, you can’t open it in your park. And if the G-forces are too strong, no one will ride it. I hope Atari and n-Space remember how important that element is to this series; without it, RCT is just another management sim.
I almost wish this was a direct port of RCT2 rather than a new 3D-modeled game (for me, the polygon-based RCT3 gained some spectacle but lost a lot of playability in its move away from sprites). I can’t believe I’m admitting this–being a fan of 3D on my portable–but if I had to choose between 2D sprites and polygons in 3D, I’d take the sprites.
The game’s due in March. At this point, of course, I don’t count any announced 3DS title a reality until it’s at my door in an Amazon box, but I’m hopeful.
Any other RCT fans out there in Infendo-World?
Yellow Bear
whats rtc stand for?
rollercoaster tycoon ???
think u ment rct
Dobhran
I’m with you. RCT2 was way better than RCT3… it was clean design with an easy to use interface.
Ben
You betcha. I share your ideals at being a very serious manager. Though fatalities are not completely unavoidable, I still try to prevent them from happening. But they can still happen no matter what.
Richard
@ Yellow Bear: RTC stands for Roller Toaster Creator. Yikes. Fixed. Thanks! 🙂
@Dobhran: Yeah, it’s funny how moving away from sprites actually made the parks seem less realistic and definitely more of a pain to look around. Being able to ride the coasters was great, but not worth the trade-off.
@ Ben: I got so into the role of park manager that, if I had a fatality, I’d immediately reset to the last save point. If I hadn’t saved in time to avoid a crash (dang those cheap station brakes!) I’d consider the round a loss and close the park. I always thought it was hilarious, though, how the coaster trains explode in fiery clouds…considering they have no engines at all. 🙂
David
Looking forward to buying two copies of this if it’s any good. (Since I would never be able to pry it out of my wife’s 3DS.)
Dick Magwood
this is so weird, I recently lost my copy of rollercoaster tycoon 2, and I miss all the fun I used to have with it. Saying theyre making a new one and that 2 is your favourite is like music to my ears 😀
Ben
Cool, Richard. Dang those cheap, failing station breaks indeed. When a crash is imminent, I try to quit out and not save, but if you’ve made some significant progress and you haven’t saved in a while, you’re kinda screwed. That’s what happened to me recently.
CZsWorld
Well this is an interesting piece. I’m a huge fanatic of the series, I even have 50+ YouTube videos dedicated to my parks and machinima in RCT3 (http://youtube.com/czstealth). When I heard there was a new RCT title in the works we all assumed it would be RCT4 for the PC, but this is kind of a disappointment as it will take away my ability to use to platform to machinima. Looks like they’ve booted dev Chris Sawyer as well. Oh well, looks like RCT3 is going to live on as the king of the series.
Richard
@ CZsWorld:
You, Sir, are the Rembrandt of RCT3! I personally prefer the park-map-come-to-life gameplay of RCT2, but your work really shows what can be accomplished when RCT3 is in the right hands. Amazing, mind-blowing stuff! Congrats!