[preview] RCT 3

March 25, 2004 - Six years ago, back before IGN was even a twinkle in my eye, I was seriously addicted to Roller Coaster Tycoon, shirking all responsibilities to perfect my coasters and parks. But like some other fans of the series, I was a fairly disappointed with Roller Coaster Tycoon 2. It just wasn't the gigantic leap forward that I was expecting when I had first heard of it. It was almost more like Roller Coaster Tycoon 1.5 instead of a true sequel. Now, Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 was announced a little while back, which wasn't really much of a surprise considering the sales numbers for both of the titles. What was a surprise was the brand new 3D engine and crisp detail that rushed to greet my world weary eyes. I love this series and the idea of the series, so I was happy to see it was getting the visual treatment that it deserved. Now that I've had a chance to actually see the game running, I'm even happier. Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 looks like it has the potential to revitalize the series in a way that will satisfy existing fans and bring in new ones.


Aside from the fact that creator Chris Sawyer would be taking an advisory role while Frontier Developments would take the lead, the biggest change for the series is the new 3D engine, something that I had hoped would be in the second game. This new engine, which is actually pretty impressive, provides the opportunity to expand gameplay in some new ways, make existing features easier to use, and add more personality than the 2D engine ever could have. All you have to do is look at the screenshots to see the huge difference. But it doesn't take to long to see that the series has also managed to retain its fun and cartoony style even with this upgrade.

It's not like 3D roller coaster and park designers haven't been created in the past, but I can't think of any that looked anywhere close to this good. In the past, visuals had been goofy for all the wrong reasons. Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 changes that with some seriously crisp colors, nice textures, and well modeled characters and buildings. Obviously technology is better than it used to be and the team at Frontier Developments taking advantage of that fact.

While the camera control hasn't been finalized yet (they're still playing around to find the best settings), it will allow for free movement in all directions, including being able to zoom all the way into ground level in order to experience the fun up close and zoom out far enough to give the same bird's eye view that the first two games. Having this kind of freedom along with the ability to rotate and pan the camera freely should provide the kind of control needed to build some seriously complex coasters that were incredibly difficult to construct before. Moving into the middle of a design and seeing it from the inside makes connecting some pieces much easier than before.








The 3D camera will also allow players to take a seat and ride coasters for the first time in the series. This will give you a pretty good notion as to how exciting your ride is. Sometimes getting your hands dirty and taking a first-hand view of things is the best solution to a problem. While on the coaster, the mouse can be used to "turn the head" of the character that you've possessed for the duration of your time on the ride. This view really gives you a pretty intense realization of speed while flying through tight turns.

One of the really great parts about being able to take a seat on the coaster and take a ride is the opportunity to look around and actually see the other people in the coaster with you along with their reactions. The new 3D engine has allowed the developers to go nuts with animations for the different types of personalities riding a coaster. If your coaster is fast and furious you'll find the hardcore coaster riders laughing and putting their hands in the air while those with weaker stomachs or tolerance for excitement might look sick or frightened.

These types of animations and personalization of these park visitors actually translates into all aspects of the game. Those that played the first two will remember that each of the little sprite characters, while cute in their own way, were pretty much the same graphically. Frontier has definitely taken a turn in the other direction with the new character generator for Roller Coaster Tycoon 3. There are literally hundreds of combinations of character visualizations (such as color, types of clothing, glasses, sunglasses, hair, and so on...) allowing a great and wide variety of people to enjoy a beautiful theme park. Players will even be able to dig into a character creator to build their own family or friends. With so many options, there's a good chance that most people will be able to approximate their loved ones with some success.

David Braben, Chairman and Founder of Frontier Developments, was excited to say that the role of these people started out kind of small but has grown into a huge part of the game and some of the things the team is doing with them will make the game a bit more interesting. First off, people now have an age that will be easy to see in the game itself and will also have an effect on gameplay. Kids, like in real theme parks, won't be able to get on the big kid rides because they aren't tall enough so in order to satiate this finicky crowd plenty of kid friendly rides will have to be placed in each park. Slower rides for older park customers will also be necessary.


As in past games, each character will have an individual personality, but for the first time, these individuals will be able to travel the park in a pack. This means families will walk through the park together and groups of teens will often be seen racing to the next big ride. Creating a park that will appeal to all of these types of people in a pack as well as individuals should be a new kind of challenge.

From the perspective of presentation, characters represent a lot of fun ideas. One addition to the equation is crowd dynamics, which pretty much means that crowds will react to events around them. For instance, visitors might turn their heads and watch a coaster as it rolls by or jump back to make room for a guest that lost his or her lunch after a particularly intense ride. When mixing in these kinds of behaviors with some really sweet body and facial animations for all of the different types of characters in the game and you've got an amazingly lively park especially when you consider that the engine will be able to draw thousands of people at the same time.

Building an interesting park for these virtual visitors to enjoy is still the core of the gameplay. While coasters, of which there are a ton of types (both pre-made and available for custom creation), are a big part of the attraction, customers at the park need other sorts of entertainment, refreshments, bathrooms, and rides (which are all very detailed and have pretty sweet little animations), and us gamers creating the parks need a huge level of customization to create our perfect wonderland. Thankfully, many of the tools used to create these perfect parks will be easier to use than ever before. Terrain in particular will be much easier to deal with. While veterans of the game can lay a grid over the top of the map to help with basic layout, terrain isn't based on this grid anymore. Finally we'll all be able to create rolling hills instead of blocky landscapes full of sharp edges. As you would imagine the paint brush for making adjustments to the landscape can be adjusted in size as well as in sharpness (for creating crags if you want them).

One of the best parts of the new terrain editor is that it makes adjusting terrain around existing coasters easy as pie. Once a coaster has been set down, simply use the terrain editing too to raise the level of the land around it. The terrain will automatically adjust around any existing track to eliminate what was a seriously annoying feature in Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 and 2.








Another thankful addition is the ability to add water easily at any level. The system for doing this is pretty smart. As the terrain is raised and lowered the engine will create contour lines denoting altitude levels. For example, if you create valley, contour lines will run around the inside of the valley at a certain level. If one of these contour lines manages to go all the way around the valley (meaning that the valley is closed off at that level) that means the water tool can be selected and that contour line can be clicked on and the valley will be filled up to that line with water. This is a particularly cool way of doing things as you could have a high mountain crater filled with water and a low altitude ditch filled with water at the same time.

Those that have played previous RCT titles will also be happy to hear that Frontier is putting a lot of time into developing a much friendlier and nicer looking interface than the series has seen before. In fact, the production values across all aspects of the game are increasing significantly. Among these little improvements that make such a difference are the ability to designate different kinds of music around rides to attract certain types of customers, different sounds for each of the roller coaster types and a slicker menu system.

Finally, Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 will come with a fully functional sandbox mode that players won't have to create themselves. While there will be plenty of scenarios (six of which will be unlocked right off the bat), the sandbox mode will be available for those just looking to build a park without time or money constraints. That kind of freedom is something that fans of the series have wanted for quite a while.

Frankly, I liked what I saw and the game isn't even due out until the holiday season late this year. If Frontier continues to polish the game and add even more features Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 could be quite a treat.

Dan Adams