Graphics

Hey it's 3D

Sim Theme Park features cute, colorful 3D graphics for its rides and objects. As mentioned earlier, 3D allows the player to zoom in and out and rotate around the park on the fly, without forcing you to restart the graphics. You'll be spending most of the game at the fully zoomed out view, because it's easier to manage the park that way, but from time to time it's fun to zoom all the way in so you can admire the graphics and the exquisite details of your amusement park coming to life. The default resolution of Sim Theme Park is 640x480, although you can crank that up to 800x600. It was a little disappointing at first that Bullfrog doesn't allow you to move up to 1024x768, but after playing for a while you can understand why. Once you create a large park and attract dozens upon dozens of little visitors, the game tends to chunk up quite a bit. I experienced noticeable slowdown even on my relatively powerful system while running at 800x600.

First person on the coaster

See the rest of the park from your ride

Going into first person

The first person, or camcorder mode, is what really makes Sim Theme Park unique. Simply press C and click on any point in the park and you're transported to that point, where you're able to look and walk around, Quake style. The control isn't totally crisp, especially if there are a lot of visitors in the park, but it doesn't really matter too much. You're there to admire the nifty view, not aim a railgun. Seeing the rides from that perspective gives you an entirely new sense of scale and size than what you're used to from "bird's eye view" where you'll be spending most of the game. Even better than walking around is experiencing your own rides in first person, and seeing the great expanse of your park when you're at an elevated position. Where camcorder mode is not so great is when you're looking at the little children visitors. The textures for the kids and certain other parts of the park don't seem to expand accordingly when you go into camcorder mode - as a result, some parts of the game look like you've hit the magnifying glass a few too many times in Photoshop. In other words, pixellated and blocky. It's a minor gripe though. Overall we're quite pleased and amazed with what Bullfrog has accomplished with first person mode.

Log flume ride

Space zone coasters use strange 'supports'

Sounds like teen spirit

Audio in Sim Theme Park is about what you'd expect. Playing the game sounds about the same as a real amusement park does, with a general buzz of people, laughter and squeals from children having fun, and the mechanical noises of roller coasters and rides in operation. I was a little disappointed with the music; each of the four worlds has its own set of "mood music," which is tailored appropriately for the particular theme. Out of the four worlds, I really only enjoyed the Halloween World music.

Giant puzzle side show

Kids like the cat suits in the costume shop