Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 Platinum is so very addictive

My husband bought me this as a present after I protested about an old copy of Theme Park Hospital crashing in the last level, and let me tell you, I have not looked back.

Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 Platinum offers you the original Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 with the two expansion packs, Wild and Soaked, included. This is the way I like my gaming. I hate having to wait around for the expansions.

For those not familar with the game, the basic idea is to build your own theme park through a combination of rollercoasters, rides, scenery, food stalls and general amenities. You also have control over the hiring, training and discipling of staff; advertising your park; costs of rides and entry (in some levels); and research into new rides.

This game offers you two ways to play- career and sandbox. I am a fan of career as it provides you with guidance on reaching achievements. The sandbox mode offers you a empty block of land, unlimited funds, and lets you go for it. I would suggest first timers go for career first, as it gives you more guidance on how to play with the basics.

Once you have chosen the career mode, you are able to select your theme- normal RollerCoaster Tycoon or soaked or wild. Each level allows you to choose from approximately a third of the parks, more open up as you progress through the scenarios. Each of these provides you with a different scenario to play ie someone has gone bankrupt and you have to get it back to making money.

Once you have selected you park, it loads and you find out what your objectives are for each of the levels- Apprentice, Entrepreneur and Tycoon. Once you reach Tycoon for that scenario, another one opens up. The objectives are wide ranging including building a rollercoaster with an excitement level of 6, impressing a celebrity visitor, and reaching a certain park level (this is gauged on things like cleaniness of park, excitement level for rides etc).

The expansions do build on the basic RollerCoaster Tycoon game, adding the option of getting animal enclosures (Wild add-on) and water slides (Soaked add-on). These open up the ability of doing challenges in addition to your scenario objectives eg selling a number of bear ears etc.

When it comes to general game play, this game is brilliant. When you want to build a rollercoaster, you can do your own, through a rather easy to use system or load a predone one. I have found the predesigned ones are easier to use, especially when you have to reach certain goals ie excitement levels and length. If you do decide to design your own and you are having difficulty completing it, you are able to click on an option that tries to finish it for you. Beware though, this doesn't always work and I found it too fiddly. You can spend a large amount of time trying to adjust it so that it can complete it for you.

Once you have built your rollercoast, loaded or not, you have the ability to decide how many cars will run on it, whether you want friction, as well as the speed within a predetermined range. Additionally, you can edit the cost to ride it, frequency of inspections by maintenance and number of circuits.

With all of this in mind, the best feature of all the rides is that ability to jump on to the ride and see what it would be like. This is coaster cam. Whilst in this, you can chose where you sit ie front, back. If you have a really good coaster, you just HAVE to ride it!!!

With your normal rides, you can adjust basically all the features listed above as well as ride them. I have noticed that some of the rides in this game are very very similar to those that we have here in Australian theme parks.

In addition to the rides, you have to build amenities for your "peeps" which are information booths (sell umbrellas, and maps), toilets (very important), first aid booths (need to place near your rollercoasters), and ATMs (lets your peep get more money out to spend). These are just your basics that each park needs. Not all scenarios have them, meaning that sometimes you need to research them.

Additionally, you have to build food and drink stall for your peeps. These are generally items that you have to research, and as you go through the levels, you open more of them up.

The visual quality of this game is really good. I have seen on some other reviews on other sites that this game has been marked down due to crashing and staff getting stuck. I have to say that the only issue that I have had is one of my lions looked like he was bopping to a very very fast beat, but when I moved him, it was all good. I have spent many many hours playing this game and have not had it crash once.

Overall, I love this game, and I would recommend it to anyone. It will suit ages 13 over, just due to some of the complexities of due the achievements, and would recommend adult supervision for how much time it sucks out of your life!!! I just loose soooo much time playing it, but have a ball doing so!