RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures

When Incite magazine asked Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson what his favorite game was back in the day, he came back with a rather surprising answer -- SimCity. He liked that it forced him to use his mind and think strategically, something he wasn't getting from the platformers and beat 'em ups of the era. This is something I can relate to, because I've always loved micromanaging my way through games like SimCity, Theme Park and Aven Colony. I think that's why I was so excited to dive into RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures on the Switch, the long-running franchise's newest console iteration. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm for the genre isn't going to be enough for me to overlook the easy difficulty and rampant technical problems that plague this amusement park simulator.

Despite its more intrepid subtitle, RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures is a fairly straight-forward take on the theme park building simulator that debuted two decades ago. The adventure, if you want to call it that, is take control of constructing and managing a new park full of rides, refreshments and restrooms. You'll grow the theme park from a local attraction to the type of massive vacation hotspot that people flock to from all across the world. If you can keep the entertainment fresh and the money flowing in, then you might have what it takes to run the next Disneyland.

Between the goofy rides, the fattening food and the overpriced shops, there's a lot to love about this concept. Believe it or not, it's something I've been wanting to see done right since I played Theme Park by Bullfrog back in the mid-1990s. It seems like a simple enough simulator, but nobody has been able to get it right. It's an intoxicating concept that continues to be fraught with problems.

For the first hour or two, I honestly felt like RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures had solved most of these problems. That's not to call it perfect, but I was completely won over by the silly rides, upbeat atmosphere and the easy gameplay. I was basking in the glow of starting my own theme park, blissfully unaware of the game's faults and limitations. But as that feeling started to wear off, I quickly realized that this new Switch game hasn't fixed the genre's many issues, it just created a whole new batch of problems.

Like most theme park simulators, RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures starts strong and then immediately runs out of ideas. Atari has never been able to figure out what is supposed to come next, which is probably why this version often feels aimless and easy. And that's the real problem, you're never challenged. It's not like SimCity, where you're constantly trying to balance pollution, crime, gridlock, natural disasters and the occasional Godzilla attack, because there aren't any real obstacles to running a theme park. You'll occasionally need to hire more janitors, put down more bathrooms and train new technicians to fix the rides, but it's never more complicated than that. You won't have to deal with a bigger, better theme park stealing all your customers, a big downturn in the economy or an infectious disease crippling business. You just build a park, set down some rides and watch it grow, usually with no speedbumps along the way.

And that's not hyperbole, because there are huge stretches of the game where you don't even need to pay attention to what's happening on screen. You can just set down the controller and let the money add up. You may want to occasionally research some new attractions, build a few more rides and adjust the prices, but you don't have to be as hands-on as you might expect. And because I knew I was never in any real danger of losing money or customers, I ended up growing incredibly bored with each and every playthrough.

Click For the Full Picture Archive

It doesn't help that all four of the park locations play out exactly the same way. You'll research the same rides, set up the same restaurants and be offered the same multiple-choice options every single time. And the longer you play, the more limited everything feels. You can't upgrade your rides or customize anything, so there isn't all that much to do outside of setting prices. This feels like a step backwards from even the earliest versions of Theme Park, which allowed you to adjust everything from the level of salt on the fries to the amount of carbonation in the soda. This level of micromanaging may seem extreme, but I would argue that there isn't much else to do when running an amusement park.

There are other problems with RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures that only show up in the second half of the game. For example, the load times are horrendous. Just trying to pull up any stats or customer data will take at least a minute while the game calculates everything. And even when the stats do show up, they're limited, hard to navigate and almost entirely useless. There are a number of genuinely useful stats, graphs and heat maps they could have included in this game, but it's nowhere to be seen.

Worse yet, the game chugs and slows to a crawl the moment your park is half full. It won't take more than a few of those big rides to tank the frame rate, and it only gets worse from there. This makes everything from setting up new attractions to adjusting the price a real nightmare. You'll be fighting the technical limitations more than financial hardships or obstacles in this game. And it definitely doesn't help that the music consists of two short songs that alternate. This is a game where you'll theoretically spend hours fine tuning your park, so it would make more sense to have longer songs are better loops. The music sounds like it was tossed in at the last second after the team ran out of money.

And based on the name, you might think that creating your own roller coaster would be a big focal point. But it's not. You can customize your own roller coaster, but it's always easier to just select one of the prefab versions found in the options. A lot of the reason for this is because customizing your own ride is about as much fun as hammering a nail through your hand. The creation tool is unruly and incredibly difficult to use. Thankfully, the game comes with countless other options, all of which are better than the crap you'll create using the tool.

Click For the Full Picture Archive

One good thing I can say about RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures is that it controls well in handheld mode. The game is manageable with a controller, but the touchscreen is the way to go. This is a game built with tablet-style controls in mind, and the combination of the analog stick and touchscreen makes playing this game so much easier. It's just a shame the game you're playing is too easy, repetitive and busted.

RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures starts off strong, but it won't take long for the game's many problems to show up. While I like the welcoming atmosphere and touchscreen controls, I found the game to be entirely too easy with no real obstacles to deal with. The lack of challenge turns an otherwise fun simulator into an exercise of boredom and repetition. This makes way to a legion of technical problems, especially in the late game scenarios. Who knew running an amusement park would be this easy?