DJ Sacks weekly appreciation thread: Theme Park

[DJ Sack]

Ive already mentioned this once already but i feel it needs its own thread, as its SO GREAT!

The into, with the midlands bank sofa 'Dad...im bored!' And you seeing the family along with the dog being wisked away to a theme park by a guy in a top hat and with a cane. Planes come flying into view, ice creme stalls spring up, and the roller coaster grows hundreds of feet in height.

Start the game and your presented with a green patch of land and some money. The tutorial gets you into the game quickly and simply, lay some path down, create a bouncy castle, place the entrance and exit, maybe an ice cream stall, some toilets and a few trees, name your park and open it up with some fireworks!

Watch as the people rush in for free...FREE! Quick up the price to 5 pounds as you'll need to make some money. Some kids been sick all over the pavement, better hire a cleaner to clean it up. Watch as he walks along the path and cleans it, but before it does other guests have seen it and now a tidal wave of puke covers every inch of the path. Hire some more quick!

Ho-OH! the Bouncy castle is smoking and making a funny noise, get an enginer out to fix it, once he has done it, he'll go back to eating his lunch. people are getting bored waiting in the Queue, hire an entertainer to...entertain them.

Wow a new ride has opened up, its a maze, install it, the people sure do like it. People are getting a little bored of your older rides though, better get some new, more exciting ones in, such as the roller coaster, ghost house and water log ride.

Biker gangs have come to mess up your theme park, hire some security to get rid of them.

People tell you if they are happy with thought bubbles on their heads, what they want, what they dont want. The graphics are still nice today, bright and colourful and really makes you want to be there. Its great building the perfect theme park, placing trees and water features around, building it the way you want to. This game really does need a remake, and not a crappy 3D version either.

Im off to play it now, even if the time does run slightly too fast on a 1 ghz PC.

[SomeNaiveChump]

Im off to play it now, even if the time does run slightly too fast on a 1 ghz PC.

emulate the Amiga or MD version.

saving a game to an Amiga disk image is tricky, but you don't need to bother now as you can just use a save state file.

class game.

I'm off to get a drink, those chips were damned salty.

[nohsa]

I did not like it that much at the time, but it is pretty enjoyable experience.

[shynra]

Yeah i had the amiga version when it first came out and played it for years!!! (on and off)....

mustw arn you the amiga version didnt have all the rides (i think) and it also did have the ability to do a "fire work display"

[Hoop]

The Amiga version was missing all kinds of neat stuff, but it didn't detract from the experience. A classic game

[Guest Penguin_Lad]

I think you should do an UNAPPRECIATION thread - slamming EA for making Theme Park world a pile of toss.

It was a less refined game than the original. In the quest for 3D EA, took the game backwards.

Such ashame what they did to Bullfrog. Did anyone really like Syndicate Wars? They were also responsible for [wanting] "Hi-Octane", according to Mr M.

[kev]

theme park was great, apart from that it crashed every time i did well.

syndicate wars wasn't bad, it just wasn't as good as the original. but then, not much is

[CouldBeWorse]

Which version had the 3d walk a round mode was was complete and utter toss?

[Guest Penguin_Lad]

Which version had the 3d walk a round mode was was complete and utter toss?

Theme Park World. Read my earlier post.

[DJ Sack]

Which version had the 3d walk a round mode was was complete and utter toss?

The PSX version had that.

[Version2.0]

I played this game to death on the Amiga and then when I got a PC and got that version, complete with fancy additions I was like a kid in, well, a better theme park.

And, yeah, shame about the bloody awful sequels that were World and Inc.

[Pete]

bloody amazing. lets not forget its excellent legacy in the form of rollar coaster tycoon, which was also great.

but the game did crash everytime i got anywhere, ahhh!

its what stopped me pc gaming in the end, ah well.

i loved when the rides crashed and you saw people fly into the sky. ah.

[Salsa Party Animal]

I helped to test this game on Peter Moulyeux's PC for a week. I did work experience at Bullfrog.

It is a fun game and I also waited for 6 months to get Amiga A1200 version of Theme Park free from them.

[DJ Sack]

Interesting Legendary, tell us more, like what other rides may have been in there and differences in the version you played compared to the retail version. Im interested in that type of stuff

[Salsa Party Animal]

Sorry I couldn't remember much

[Liquid Myth]

I only played the Megadrive version, which was a bit of a shambles in comparison - for example, if you tried placing "too many" things in a set area (memory limitations, y'see) you get a pop-up box saying "Fire Hazard - cannot place here!" even if it was a water based ride. You couldn't place things "behind" others, i.e. in terms of viewpoint, and it just looked so hackneyed and tacky. And then there was the godawful rollercoasters, which used one of 4 pieces - a straight bit of track, a dip, a hill, and a loop. Poor beyond words.

[CouldBeWorse]

Which version had the 3d walk a round mode was was complete and utter toss?

The PSX version had that.

Ah, thats the version I had then as well as the PC version. Loved the PC version but the PSX game wasn't the same on a joypad. Might fish out the game later and install it on my PC.

[DJ Sack]

If your pc is more powerful than a p120 then forget it, it runs way to fast meaning everything blows up within about 2 minutes. Need a way to slow the game right down, i hear running lots of stuff in the background slows the game down, such as video editing. But surely theres a better way around this. Also i wonder why this game hasnt been hacked yet with different rides etc.

[Coltrane]

Class game. I reviewed the budget re-release for PC Format when I was freelancing there. My GF at the time had to drag me off the game and remind me that I had a review to write!

I think I gave it 85% which in retrospect was a bit harsh, but the then editor (Paula Richards) didn't like too many 90% games in 1 issue. Whether they were deserved or not.

[Molloy]

I only played the Megadrive version, which was a bit of a shambles in comparison - for example, if you tried placing "too many" things in a set area (memory limitations, y'see) you get a pop-up box saying "Fire Hazard - cannot place here!" even if it was a water based ride. You couldn't place things "behind" others, i.e. in terms of viewpoint, and it just looked so hackneyed and tacky. And then there was the godawful rollercoasters, which used one of 4 pieces - a straight bit of track, a dip, a hill, and a loop. Poor beyond words.

Hah.. I'd forgotten about that. The rollercoasters were indeed a fucking joke.

Theme Park suffers from the same problem most Bullfrog games had (Theme Hospital, Dungeon Keeper). You've seen everything by the time you complete the first level. Fantastic fun the first time but not something your going to play for weeks.

I thought the likes of Magic Carpet and Syndicate Wars were stronger in that regard. More mission variety.

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

If your pc is more powerful than a p120 then forget it, it runs way to fast meaning everything blows up within about 2 minutes. Need a way to slow the game right down, i hear running lots of stuff in the background slows the game down, such as video editing. But surely theres a better way around this. Also i wonder why this game hasnt been hacked yet with different rides etc.

There's a program to slow you computer down to run old games. It's called Mo'Slo, and can be found on:

http://www.hpaa.com/moslo/

Don't know if it works with Theme Park, but Cinemaware recommends it when running the ancient It Came From The Desert on a modern PC.

[MK-1601]

I didn't think Theme Park was particularly good to be honest. It came out after Syndicate and Magic Carpet, didn't it?

Rollercoaster Tycoon and Startopia are probably the best modern incarnations of the Theme Park idea.

[Unofficial Who]

Most of Bullfrog's creations seem to be variations on Populous. Magic Carpet hid this the best though.

Back when it was released it was a couple of months before I caught on that Magic Carpet was a 3D shooter set in a scaled down version of Populous.

[Droo]

i can remember something being on the news about magic carpet in regards to pentium processors, intel released a pentium overdrive (is this correct??) so people could upgrade their sub pentium mobo's (486\s)to a faster CPU and ran magic carpet as the example of speed...

Does anyone else remember this?

D

[DJ Sack]

Yeah i kind of remember that, was like a sort of adapter for the newer processors to fit into giving you a bit of extra speed.

[rob_quill]

If your pc is more powerful than a p120 then forget it, it runs way to fast meaning everything blows up within about 2 minutes. Need a way to slow the game right down, i hear running lots of stuff in the background slows the game down, such as video editing. But surely theres a better way around this. Also i wonder why this game hasnt been hacked yet with different rides etc.

Look for a program called cpugrab.exe - it comes with DirectX SDKs but you should be able to find just the file on it's own by looking for it in Google. Run the program and set the amount of processor time you want wasted, press start then run Theme Park.

BTW I haven't tested it on Theme Park, but I used it to play Warcraft 2.

Rob

[MW_Jimmy]

Brilliant Game. Had it on the Jaguar (Bullfrog did very good conversions to it) and generally played in one of two ways:

1) Put loads of research money into the transport so that I had a shit park but loads of customers and a cheap price to get it. Only problem is that you needed about 100 toilets and probably double hanymen.

2) Put all the research money into rollercosters. Build an ace one with all my money, then charge loads to get in.

[Hoop]

i can remember something being on the news about magic carpet in regards to pentium processors, intel released a pentium overdrive (is this correct??) so people could upgrade their sub pentium mobo's (486\s)to a faster CPU and ran magic carpet as the example of speed...

Does anyone else remember this?

D

I remember the Neighbours storyline where the good Doctor Karl got addicted

[Molloy]

Yeah i kind of remember that, was like a sort of adapter for the newer processors to fit into giving you a bit of extra speed.

Magic Carpet had some really clever AI. The behavour of the different monsters and the level designs made it far more varied than Populous.

I remember seeing the game on Bad Influence and being really astonished. The only 3d games I'd seen up to that point were flat shaded poly ones like Virtua Fighter.

[Unofficial Who]

Yeah i kind of remember that, was like a sort of adapter for the newer processors to fit into giving you a bit of extra speed.

Magic Carpet had some really clever AI. The behavour of the different monsters and the level designs made it far more varied than Populous.

I remember seeing the game on Bad Influence and being really astonished. The only 3d games I'd seen up to that point were flat shaded poly ones like Virtua Fighter.

The PS1 version was the first Playstation game I ever bought. I still play it now six years later.

Amazing shooter that one.