RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 is almost here! RCT2 has officially gone Gold and will be in stores around mid-October!
I have been a RCT fanatic ever since the original was released in the spring of 1999. The game is incredibly fun, brilliant in it’s simplicity, yet deceptively complex, and is such a wonderful canvas for expressing creativity. You design the layout of the park. You design the buildings. You design the rollercoasters. You beautify the park with a myriad of scenary options. All of this while micro-managing peeps (i.e. make sure they are happy!). The most fun I have ever had with any game was when I designed and constructed Florida DisneySea. Man was that something!. Chris Sawyer created a masterpiece with this game IMHO.
And now we have RCT2 upon us! This game enhances and expands on the original (and add-on packs) like none I have ever seen! Take a look at what we have to look forward to:
GENERAL ENHANCEMENTS
- New Scenario Editor and Rollercoaster Designer
- Everything new adds a lot to park design, customization, and creativity
- Rides now can be built 400ft high, double the original 200ft
- Map size can now go up to 256x256, double the original 128x128
- A lot more guests in huge parks such as “2776 guests in magic mountain”
- Scenarios broken down into difficulty levels
- 3 beginner, 7 challenging, 5 expert, a few new tutorials, six flags parks are pretty difficult because they are real, created/downloaded scenarios
- Need to purchase real estate more often in RCT2 to expand park to build new rides
- Better guest AI, they know more about park, are a lot smarter, etc.
- Can make food courts for guests, it works
- Select scenario screen shows description and objectives of each scenario
- Ride research incorporated into ride menu
- Finances are now in main park menu (the menu that shows park rating and where park entrance is)
- Peeps can now walk on doublewide/triplewide/etc. paths.
- You can see every ride each guest has rode, and which ride was their favorite by clicking on the guest and going to their rides tab.
- Peeps now stop and look at rides.
- Medical Assistants
- Move mouse cursor over persons, it shows name and what they’re doing above their head (Ashley, walking…is example)
- Can keep track of all guests and stuff about them easier
- Easier pop down menus in theming and ride menus to see all your options
- TV’s can be placed in ride lines to entertain guests
NEW OBJECTIVE EXAMPLE
Lucky Lake: Unlimited funds/challenging lake
- Have 2,100 guests in park/dont let park rating drop below 700
NEW RIDE TABS
- After you click on a ride, you can see new wrench and music tabs
- After you click on a ride, above construct button, theres green blob with a stick (maybe coaster designer opener)
SCENARIO EDITOR
- You can pick scenario group your scenario will go in (begginer, challening, etc.)
- Choose objectives–such as monthly income from ride tickets
- Pick climate
- You might be able to place multiple entrances (if not, you can place still place one entrance)
- You can place park land boundaires, which land can be bought
- Choose ride vehicles, types of footpaths
- Choose where guests come from on the map before they enter the park
- Chris Sawyer used it, so everything needed is in it. You can make awesome parks like the six flags parks
- Can basically make sandbox mode: make unlimited time to meet objectives, unlimited money, all rides unlocked, no boundaries, etc.
- Can choose interest rate, loan, and how guests feel for the beginning of scenario
- You can choose available/researchable rides, and shops
- You can make the terrain and choose victory conditions
- Can check off rides you dont want people to be able to build
- You can choose starting money
ROLLERCOASTER DESIGNER
- Brings you out of scenario to make coasters
- You can attach scenery to the ride, and save it, then bring it into scenario
- No need to worry about park at all, nothing is happening, but you making the ride, time doesnt go by, no park problems happen
- Monitor ride while making it such as vertical g’s
NEW TYPES OF THEMING
6 new themes, old themes completed
- Pirates
- Wild West
- Candy
- Sports
- Giant Garden
- Indian
- I have also noticed a Factory/Gears theme, which would make 7 new themes, so some of the above scenery might be combined as one.
SCENERY
- Rides go through scenery
- Stack objects with shift key, raise and lower/bury objects with shift key also. Can raise objects on supports without having land right under them.
- Can make buildings by stacking walls, roofs, and placing windows
- Can color more pieces, lakes, walls, etc.
- Better terraforming/can level terrain easier (new bouldozer button)
- Remove trees in certain areas
- Place trees in chunks
- Paths can have covers to protect people from rain
- Ride name signs can be attached to stations/nearby areas
- Cogs, smocking chimneys
- Better water detail
- Blocky lands and hills are gone, more smooth and real looking slopes and themed ground transitions, everything will look less blocky
- Waterfalls
- New dark green line color (maybe you can pick your own color for lines now)
- Stairs
- New footpaths/support theming
- Water fountains can now be placed on land also
- Sideways shooting fountains
- Double/triple/etc. wide footpaths that ai follows
- Footpaths dont need to touch, can be on squares next to eachother and not connect (good for placing ride lines that always connect to everything and its annoying)
- Water tornado
- New trees
- Themeable park entrance
- More theme matched entertainers (cowboy for wild wild west)
- Can put enough theming around park entrance to make it huge and cool (such as the castle park scenario, it has huge castle doors for park entrance)
- Loads of new fencing (with themes)
- Theme whole rides with weird objects (shown in log flume and soap box derby screenshots)
- Signs on coasters (top of hills such as dont stand up)
- New double gate park entrance shown at one of the six flags parks
- Roof over entire rides (shown in carousel screenshot)
- More colors hopefully/music
- New land/cliff face colors (wild west has like gray ground in the screenshot)
- New sand texture.
- Ability to build themed tunnels around rides.
- New palm tree, many other trees.
- Change color of path supports.
- Fences on bridges.
- Diagonal buildings.
- New wall textures.
- More ground textures.
- Scenery does not have to be placed on flat land & it can be raised.
- Picnic Table
NEW SHOPS/STALLS
- Medical Center
- ATM Machines
- New Ice-cream Stall Look (unless themeable)
- New Coffee Stall Look (unless themeable)
- New Lemonade Stand Look (unless themeable)
- Themeable Bathroom (Normal, Wooden, Maybe More)
- Pretzel stall
- Beef noodle stand
- Cookie stall
- Chicken nugget stall
- Chip shop
- Cookie shop
NON-COASTER RIDES/ENHANCEMENTS
- Monster truck mini cars
- Speed bump things on mini cars
- Steep hills and drops on mini cars
- Magic carpet ride
- Splash boats
- Cheshire cat ride (what is it??)
- Dinghy slide (what is it??)
- Double deck observation tower
- Soap box derby racers
- Log flume on-ride photo
- Snow cups (tea cups)(hopefully themeable, hopefully more rides are themeable also)
- Ski lift chairs for skilift (ski ride??)
NEW COASTER ENHANCEMENTS
- 90 degree drops
- More freedom, stuff only certain rides could do in original can be done in more rides (such as 90 degree drops in verticle coaster can now be done in many other coasters)
- Mine train on metal track
- Dropped bank slopes
- Customizable/more real coaster supports
- Backwards uplift on suspended coasters (like on boomerang)
- Rollercoaster verticle loops can be done from a straight track, you no longer need to go up 1 piece, then do the loop, then down 1 piece. This allowes you to have touching verticle loops
- Steeper lift hills
- Faster lift hills
- New Arrow looping trains.
- Proper spiral lifts on steel mini.
- New trains on steel mini.
- LIM launched mine train.
- Block brake system.
- Twisting vertical drops on steel twister.
- New top hat element on steel twister.
- New spinning cars on steel wild mouse.
- Suspended Floorless trains.
- Stairs on lift hills.
- Improved coaster design.
- Higher Reverse Free Fall coasters.
- New Premier trains & track.
- Premier track can do big cobra rolls & top hats.
- Walkways on brake runs.
- Duel stations for log flume.
- New trains on monorail.
- New trams on railway track.
- Transfer Track
- Twisting vertical drops
- Seperate loading and unloading platforms
- Better transitions between track segments
NEW ROLLERCOASTERS
- 25 new coaster types (some old kinds combined and tweaked and renamed)
- 25 Six Flags Track designs including Viper, Titan, and Goliath
- 4D Coaster
- Stand-up twister coaster
- Suspended swing coaster
- Suspended swinging coaster (floorless)
- Steel bobsled coaster
- Air powered vertical coaster
- Bobsleigh coaster
- Compact inverted coaster
- Spinning wild mouse
- Spiral rollercoaster
- Arrow 4D.
- Giovanola Hyper.
- Intamin Impulse.
- Intamin box track.
- Intamin Hyper coaster trains.
- Intamin Impulse Trains.
- Intamin Mega/Giga Coasters
- Intamin Looper
- G-Tech Hyper Coaster
- Priemer LIM Bowl
- Arrow Hyper
- Schwarzkopf Jet Star
- Arrow 4D
- B&M Flyer
- Vekoma Swinging Floorless
- Reverchon Mouse
- Mack Mine Train
TRANSPORTS
- Better monorail (new vehicle used)
- Trams
- Trams dont need to go from station to station like stream trains
PERSPECTIVE
- Supports 1024x768 resolution
- Same look and feel from first game
- Lots of new animated pieces and better animations on rides(a lot better)
- Same interface
- When placing rides, you can see a white blueprint of what the ride looks like, so you can tell what scenery it will cut through, and sorta what it would look like. You can also tell easier why you cant build the ride if it says you cant.
- Those annoying alerts for broken down rides can be viewed when you click on rides (might need to choose this in options, cause you’d never know when rides break down, but oh well. Its less annoying and the mechanics can fix them anyways)
- Drops, air time, and inversions are shown when making ride
- Space required to build rides is shown when building rides (exp: 24x16)
- Can make secondary scenery transparent
- Can make certain types of rides transparent
- Can make other things transparent also
- Easier transparent layout, months and money are transparent green and looks more refreshing
- Click anywhere on screen (might need to turn this on in options, could be annoying if you dont mean too. But then again, it could just be if you right click)
- Game looks more beautiful overall, more colorful (new engine)
- Park Map is keyed into colored blocks (rides/food/drinks/souvenir/info/first aid/atm/toilets included)
