Related Games / RCT 3 Demo Verdict

This game has me enthralled, with a -2 penalty to Charisma, and -3 to Intelligence. The game had a +4 modifier to it's roll because of my love for the first 2 games, so I concede that this was inevitable. If you don't get that, don't worry about it.



the downs:

Major improvement in graphics. The trade-off? Parkmaking ability. There is some severe limitations, that are going to be hard to overcome. I'm going to assume that the greyed out things on the menus are all we get. The limit on the trees is unreal. Totally not enough. People are definately going to have a hard time making themed areas look different. The boulders, GREAT IDEA, bad execution. It's a HUGE step forward for the game, but just as much as it goes forward, it goes backwards. The buildings, they don't look so hot. Is the only option for a thin 1x1 roof the canvas awning? Ouch. Seriously. Those kinds of things are the achille's heel. The canvas awnings are one-sided. You can see through them from the bottom. The same sort of thing can happen with the wooden "scaffold" walls, the railings. This game is on the threshold of greatness, but some simple failures are holding it back. The one thing that bothers me the most is that you cannot build a wall on the same square as a path. There's definately some issues I have with paths, because up until now, paths have been used for all sorts of things, and alot of those things are no longer an option. This may just be the demo, but these things are part of the game itself. I think it has been mentioned somewhere else that the buildings are too shiny. It almost feels more like RCT 1. It's going to be that kind of architecture because you simply can't do the things that you did in RCT 2. Is there really just that one bush? I mean, there's more down the line, but come on! You would think that they would give us more than that. I mean, hell, there's hundreds of bullshit scenery peices that we'll never use, I would trade all of those in for 3 more bushes, and maybe 1 or 2 extra trees. After looking through the menu , I may be mistaken, but I don't see arches. That's a dissapointment. I liked being able to make things like Lemuria. Is it me or is the fence selection total bullshit?

the ups:

It's fucking 3d. FUCKING 3D!!! I can be, down there looking up at my rides! You can't say no to that! The ride options are incredible, and the woody's supports may look like shit, but so what? It's fun! You can ride your rides, in your park, any time you want. Any one of them. Good job, Atari & Frontier! The peeps are awesome. I'm sure we can work around all the negatives mentioned above, and make some quality shiz. I can't say enough about the camera options. It's incredible. Alot of the initial problems with the game go away once you know what you're doing, and actually become intuitive. The scenery placement is natural, and being able to look at it from any angle is a serious plus. It's almost surreal that they would make such a game for us. You know they never would have put those kind of scenery options in the game if it wasn't for us sitting here making parks all the time. Atari & Frontier have given us everything they possibly could, and nearly everything we ever asked for. It's incredible to me, and I have a lot of respect for the programmers and developers, and if any of them read this, I want them to know they are appreciated. The trees come out looking pretty nice if you've got a decent system.

The landscaping options, are absolutely astounding. If you haven't spent an hour molding the landscape to learn how to use all of them, DO SO NOW. The Terrain Averager tool, I imagine a surgeon sewing a patient shut, or a sewing machine closing a stitch. That is some seriously awsome shit.

Overall Reaction
Atmosphere is going to be the key here, guys. That's the second time I've said that and I really mean it. The buildings look fake, they look like shiny plastic toys. In the hands of the wrong people, there could be some seriously ugly shit coming in our direction. You're going to have to be really careful with your color choices in this one. Think about a park stocked full of those shiny yet dull buildings, one right next to the other, over and over and over. I don't think so. I think we're going to have to separate buildings more, and put a real emphasis on an overall atmosphere, instead of individual buildings. You're going to have to create your section as a section, not building by building. I think that we may see a bunch of classical parks coming out. My experience with the game makes me want to re-make Lake Claire. It just sends that nostalgic feeling across to me. I don't want to see what a 300 foot tall Giga looks like. I don't want to see what the 4D looks like. I want to see lakes, and trees , beautiful landscapes and beautiful rides. I don't get the feeling that we're going to see any IOA type parks, yet, I could be wrong. I just couldn't imagine ever making something like ROB in this. I will say it again, this feels so much more like RCT 1. Pull your squares out of the ground and texture them, except it's got the scenery control from RCT 2. You aren't pulling land up and texturing it, but the buildings are often going to be the same shape as RCT 1.

I love it. Don't get me wrong from my negative comments, I absolutely love the game.

But it's still ...


this
versus
this

Overall: [8.5] out of [10]

edit: after contemplating, i think that i could build that venice theme in RCT 3.

You finally used color on your Mediterranean section...

After playing with the demo for a couple of days, here are my thoughts.

Ups:

The landscaping has to be my absolute favourite addition to this game. It took a while to figure all the tools out, but once I got there, it seems that everything is there to make beautiful, easy to create and easy to work with scenic vistas. The 3-d engine makes coasters absolutely stunning to look at from many angles, and the coaster cam turned out great. I find the camera system is actually quite easy to use, tho I do hear other complaining about it. I also love the fact that there are some new exciting flatrides to work with and enjoy riding them first person as well.

Downs:

Some of the control systems aren't as easy to use as I would have hoped, but you can get used to them. My guess is that they will just force me to approach my building routine in a different way, which is fine. My biggest gripe (and something that SAC touched on) is in the scenery we're going to be getting with the game. There appears to be a definite lack of tree variation which is extremely disappointing, as well as the fact that it appears none of the trees are 1/4 tile (ie. the small sugar pine). I do think the trees that are available in the game do look nice on higher settings tho. Even more of a problem is the fact that it does not appear the developers took the time to make sure the architecture items (ie walls, blocks and rooves) line up well together. It drives me nuts to have a building which you can see seams or gaps in the walls on. There seems to be way too much of this problem with the limited scenery set we have been given. My third major problem is the design of the scenery selection menu. It's impossible to find what you want with only one group available and I can only imagine what a bitch it will be like when everything there is available and as future expansions are released. This is seriously a daunting enough task that it sucks a lot of the flow out of building and may even be enough to keep me from playing the game. I have such a limited amount of time to play that I really don't want to spend most of it trying to find 'the brick wall with two windows' if you understand what I'm saying.

Overall:
I agree with SAC in that simpler will be better at first with this game. The tools it provides don't look like they will foster far-out fantasy park creation as well as the other genres. That said with the imagination and creativity around this site, I will probably be proved very wrong on that statement very quickly. The other issue is that it's been strongly suggested by Atari that user created scenery will be an option at some point in time. At that time, I would suggest that as a community we try to find a way to avoid the custom scenery catastrophe that plagues RCT2 (I think you all understand what I mean by that). Custom scenery could be a great addition to RCT3 as well, but it's a dangerous path at times too.

From what I've seen so far I'll say
7.5/10

Im not sure if I can talk haveing not played the Demo, but just by the look of it I know I will never play RCT3D. I have always disliked 3D games, and even if it is RCT I still don't like it. RCT2 has all I think I need, so I will be sticking with RCT2.

You could atleast give it a try... It doesn't cost even one penny...

Yep, it's ok. The menu system is really hard to navigate. Sacf was talking about the lack of scenery. I believe there are some add on packs to be released, hopefully this will solve the problem. But some awesome parks can be made in RCT3, I'm sure. And if nobody else does, i will.

What is there, i love. They couldn't have made the 3D aspect of the game look and play much better. The physics engine is a little different, and so the wooden coasters seem to lose speed a lot faster than in RCT1 and 2. I'm sure i'll get used to it. The only thing that bugs me is the lack of foliage. I love foliage, and it pains me to see it given so little recognition. But with the atmosphere of it all looking so good, it won't be necessary to place a tree and/or bushes on every tile. The rolling green grass will give the same effect. I'm sure there are ways around it.

I feckin love the game, and Im forced to play it on low res and low detail, at the moment.

Ups

Well, like you both mentioned the landscaping is a seriously powerful tool. At first, it bugged the hell outa me, I couldnt get paths to align up with the landscape, then I discovered the 'snap landscape to scenery and paths' thingymabob. The mountain tool, omg I almost orgasmed when I turned my completely flat landscape into a canyon, in what, two minites.
The atmosphere oozes out of this game, and I agree, classic & realistic parks will dominate this game, I can see Alton Towers being a faviorate park for me to tackle. I've already attemted Nemesis and I must say, good sirs, that RCT3 is absolubtly fantastic for Nemesis recs, there was one annoying thing, il touch on that later.

The graphics are feckin beautiful, well, the short time I had my game running at full whack was amazing. The "flying" perspective is awesome, and I love the fact that you can still build in that mode. I think the full tile scenery and the trigger point scenery is also very niffty, there is a wide range of path items, some of those signs looks sick man.

Downs

Those flowers look like shit, im sorry. The trees, bushes etc, too limited selection of larger objects. The menu layout is bad, and the fact that you cant landscape from the coaster construction window pisses the hell out of me. I also get annoyed when I cant rotate the camera whilst the mouse is over a window, and the num lock enter key cant rotate the camera either.

Erm, the water tool too. Whilst I do love being able to submerge like, all the map in once click, it also limits the choice of water tables. When I was building my Nemmy rec I couldnt have water falls because each time I clicked at one height, the whole ride became submerged!!! NOOOO!

Overall

Deffinate winner. Puts the fun back into parkmaking and adds a whole new dimension. [maybe the 3rd dimension :-o] Not entirely built around complex architecture, but it has all the tools for building fecking awesome parks, and the fun side is not bumming off how good the architecture is, but how well the rides and scenery are compiled and put together, and architecture can no longer be used for looks, but also for use!

I absolubtly love this game, I would never have guessed we'd get everything we wanted, and then some more.

9.0 out of 10.00
My future at NE is now 100% in 3D.

I can't believe you guys are doing this now.
After what, a week of playing?

Asperix, you know that everything we're saying is true, and it's also quite obvious that these opinions are genuine because of the consistencies. (ie. classical/realistic parks coming, architecture is failing)

It may just be a week, but you gotta review it sometime. This IS RCT 3, no matter if we can use the disabled scenery or not. The flowers are still ugly.

I noticed another problem. When you are trying to build a fence next to a path, and you cant build it on the same square as the path, and you want to build it on the opposing square, it will somes be slanted if the land below the fence is slanted.

I don't like it as much as I thought I would actually.

To me, the interface looks pretty difficult to work with, and it takes a long time to construct anything. I know that's mainly because it's new and I'm not used to it, but path building is a mission, and coasters take much longer than I thought.

The graphics are good, until you zoom in too close. The coaster supports don't look all that great, especially on the woodie, but yeah, it's fun to go on Coaster Cam and ride your own rides.

I love the new landscaping. It provides so many more options, and there are loadsa new land textures which is good!

The paths (after you've got round the difficulty to build) are great. It's cool to have 3 different inclines.

The flat rides are awesome. The animation is so smooth, and I love the way you can change the path around it all to make it fit in. Also I like the idea of changing the queue line colours to fit in.

The fireworks looked cool and i look forward to making my own shows to my own music.

The peeps were really cool, loads of variation which I didn't expect.

Overall, the game looks impressive, and has some very impressive features, but when you actually play it, it's hard to perform a function that you want to, and some of the graphics are messy.

Scuse the rushed review, have to get going.

Asperix, you know that everything we're saying is true, and it's also quite obvious that these opinions are genuine because of the consistencies.  (ie.  classical/realistic parks coming, architecture is failing) 

It may just be a week, but you gotta review it sometime. This IS RCT 3, no matter if we can use the disabled scenery or not.  The flowers are still ugly. 

I noticed another problem.  When you are trying to build a fence next to a path, and you cant build it on the same square as the path, and you want to build it on the opposing square, it will somes be slanted if the land below the fence is slanted.

Also, if you sculpt land that has a path on it, the path itself gets all weird and distorted and probably unwalkable.

I found this out the first time I used the demo!

I'm pretty closed-minded for saying this (Haven't tried RCT3) but uh, RCTGL > RCT3. Anyday.