RollerCoaster Tycoon 2: Wacky Worlds Expansion Pack

The Wacky Worlds expansion game takes its name from the idea that building theme parks near famous locations around the world is a crazy idea that's slightly wacky, but one ultimately that would appeal to the child in all of us. Well, I for one find the idea of building a theme park next to the Grand Canyon scary, not wacky. Hopefully, President Bush is not a RollerCoaster Tycoon fan. (Before I receive any mail, let me state that I like Bush and voted for him.)

However, after the initial "ewwh" knee-jerk reaction, I came to my senses and realized that this is just a game, after all, and meant for us to live out our wildest fantasies, which for some of us may very well include building a meatball soup pagoda on top of the Great Wall of China.

Wacky Worlds is an expansion game for RollerCoaster Tycoon 2, which many may argue was in actuality an expansion game itself, in that it offered tons of new scenarios and items, but little new features besides the scenario and coaster editors. Still, the editors, coupled with the cool new items, made the $30 purchase price worthwhile for most RCT fans. This new add-on is also $30, though, and the question is begged, "Is it worth it?"

I and my youngest daughter (13) are big, big RCT fans and have thoroughly enjoyed the game and its add-ons since their debut four years ago. We've also enjoyed the add-ons for Zoo Tycoon and the various ones for the Heroes of Might and Magic series, so I'm not against the idea of add-ons, as long as the price is reasonable compared to the content.

With Wacky Worlds, the idea is to build "themed" theme parks around famous landmarks like the Grand Canyon, the Great Wall of China, a rain forest area in the Amazon (!), and, well, you get the picture. There are 17 new scenarios in all, each with a plethora of themed coasters, scenery and buildings. The coasters and other rides are really nothing new, but have different artwork changing the appearance overall, but not the main look or design. The scenery and buildings are pretty cool, and add great effects to the parks.

The graphics are still exactly the same in appearance as the original RCT of four years ago, which were not state of the art then. I'm not a big graphics nit-picker, and am fond of many an older game like Day of the Tentacle that sports some pretty dated pixels. However, that's a story-driven game where the story is more important than the look; in a simulation/building game, half the fun is watching the action unfold after tweaking the businesses, and RCT would be much more fun watching with updated graphics.

All the themed buildings and rides are wonderful additions, with one major drawback: they can't be used outside their matching scenario in other scenarios! While it is true that the scenario editor can be used to design a scenario and place these items inside said scenario, this is a clunky method of utilizing these items. I should be able to place any of the new items inside any of the scenarios from the original RCT2, without having to make a new scenario.

My daughter couldn't care less about ecological purity concerns, and the fact that the new items are chained to their respective scenarios only bothers her a little. She's too busy building spectacular parks and designing roller coasters to worry about trifling details like these. She has given this add-on an enthusiastic "two thumbs up." I'm also having fun, once I divorced my initial reaction to the idea of buying land from Native Americans to build a theme park to make money for them.