RollerCoaster Tycoon 3: Soaked! – PC – Review

Just in time
for the hottest days of summer, Soaked! gives Tycooners plenty of tools to cool
off the peeps enjoying their parks, even if they themselves are sweating in
their desk chair.

Yay,
Rollercoaster Tycoon 3’s first expansion is here! Soaked! adds tons of new
features to the already fun Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, and if your drive to play
RCT3 is dried up by now Soaked! should coax it off the deep end and provide
hours of additional entertainment.

When I first
heard word of RCT3’s first expansion being based around swimming pools and such,
I have to say I was a bit worried. I thought it sounded too specific and was
afraid there wouldn’t be enough content to drive a full expansion pack. Well,
let me tell you that it isn’t just about swimming pools (even though those are a
blast to create) and there are plenty of things to play with.


One feature
I was very excited to come across was the addition of tunnels. Fans of the
previous RCT games probably noticed right away that they couldn’t create tunnels
for their rides or pathways in RCT3. Soaked! brings back the tunnels, and even
makes them more believable by adding underground lights and tunnel entrances.
Also, for players that enjoy placing rides and scenery at different elevations,
a sort of “position copy” feature was added. Now, say you place a raised piece
of scenery and want to place another one nearby at the same height. If you press
and hold control while the cursor is on the previous item you’ll notice the
current object jumps to that same height. It’s pretty useful when you want
objects at the same height but can’t quite tell how high that is for manual
placement.

The biggest
draw for this expansion is the ability to create swimming pools. Pools are
extremely easy to make; it’s a lot like making a pathway. There is no need to
dig out the ground; all you do is drag the pool tool across the ground where you
want it. There are a few different setups for the shapes of the pools, so you
can choose whether the pool has sharp edges, smooth edges, and a couple settings
in between. After the basic shape is created you can then add tile, which is
like the pool’s walkways. You can create islands by placing tile blocks in the
middle of the water, or just widen the edges for placement of pool extras. Once
you’re happy with your pool area, add a couple changing rooms and open it to the
public. At this point all you have is a basic, empty pool, so now you can have
fun making it your own.

Soaked!
added pool extras to spice up your peeps’ swimming experience. You can place
diving boards, ladders, and underwater lights anywhere along the pool’s edge. On
the tile surrounding the pool you can place showers, lamps, lounging chairs, hot
tubs, and life guards. If you want, you can even add a wave machine to your
pool. Aside from all these cosmetic upgrades, pools are a great opportunity to
add some cool rides to your park. Namely: water slides.


There are a
pretty good amount of water slides available, ranging from body slides to ones
that require a raft or inner tube. One of my favorite is the slide that ends
with a giant bowl-shaped piece that sort of “flushes” the peeps back into the
pool like a toilet. Slides are meant to go with pools, and after building one
you must link it to a pool. This is sort of like adding an entrance and exit to
a regular ride – you instead build a path from the edge of the pool that leads
to the beginning of the slide.

There are a
number of new booths to compliment pools now as well, including a booth for
purchasing sunglasses, sun screen, swim suits, and even inflatable pool toys.
Peeps will wear newly purchased sunglasses around the park, and you can even see
owners of the inflatable toys play with them in the pool.

While pools
seem to be the main focus of the expansion pack, they’re just a fraction of what
is included. A neat new ride that was a hit in my park is the killer whale and
dolphin shows. Place the stadium on a body of water large enough and open up the
mix master (the layout for designing fireworks in RCT3) to set up your whale
show. Here you place what tricks you want to perform and in what order. After
it’s all laid out, open the stadium and watch the peeps pile in.

The mix
master can do more than just fireworks and whale shows now, too. Laser light
shows and water jets have been added. Fully customizable using preset patterns
and your own creations, laser and water shows are really cool to build and
witness. These shows can be worked into whale shows or fireworks displays, or
secluded and on their own schedule. And don’t worry if you’re out of practice
with the mix master (or never used it) as it’s very easy to learn. The built-in
tutorial for creating laser shows explains everything very well.


One of my
favorite things to create in Soaked! are the aquariums. You can now have a glass
tunnel underwater, and with all the new underwater scenery you can create some
interesting displays for your peeps to see.

You can also
build water-based transportation rides now. So if your park is mainly water you
don’t have to have trams and trains on bridges everywhere. Build two docks, link
them, and now you have boats that constantly ferry your peeps across the park by
water.

Waterfalls
can also be built now, but are a little hard to create unless you plan for it.
Unfortunately you can’t just build a lake on a hill above another lake and have
a waterfall; the game requires specific landscaping to create a waterfall. The
only way I was able to pull them off was if I built a perfectly square body of
water and raised it above another square body of water. Not exactly a
natural-looking waterfall, but they still end up looking pretty cool anyway.

These are
all the major things you see in Soaked! – there are many more pieces of scenery
added into RCT3 with this expansion. Not only are there three new scenery
categories, but there are even new things snuck into the existing categories. I
played this expansion for days and kept finding new things here and there. Some
of my favorite additions include vents in the ground that can emit smoke, fire,
or mist, water cannons along the pathways for peeps to soak other park-goers,
elevators as another means of getting peeps to higher ground, speakers that can
be placed anywhere in the park for your mp3-listening pleasure wherever you go,
and passport machines that reward your peeps for exploring your park with a free
souvenir.

Soaked! adds
loads of scenery and ride possibilities to an already expansive game. I was
surprised at how much scenery I was finding as I played more and more, and it
was all so good I wanted an excuse to add it all to my park. I personally loved
RCT3 in the first place, but I think anyone who enjoys the style of gameplay the
Rollercoaster Tycoon series offers would love what Soaked! brings to RCT3.


Review
Scoring Details

for RollerCoaster Tycoon 3: Soaked!

Gameplay: 8.5
Gameplay isn’t
changed much at all – it’s still very easy to navigate the park and add scenery,
rides, and pathways. With the revival of tunnels it’s now even easier to build
wherever you want.


Graphics: 8.9 
The lighting
effects, scenery, and water all look beautiful. The peeps still look silly, but
that’s how they’re supposed to look.


Sound: 9.0
Sound additions
included in Soaked! are primarily rushing water and splashes. Other than that it
sounds just like vanilla RCT3, which sounded great in the first place.


Difficulty: Easy/Hard
Believe it or
not, but the campaigns in RCT3 are pretty tough. You have to watch your money,
keep your park running well, and constantly change things to keep the peeps
interested. However, sandbox mode is offered right away and allows for infinite
spending to create your dream park.


Concept: 7.8 
I still think
they could have added more stuff using a different theme, but Soaked! is perfect
for summer time and offers more than I expected it to.


Overall: 8.5
I think Soaked!
does exactly what an expansion needs to and then some. Not only did they add a
bunch of new content, rides, scenery, and events, but they even added completely
new features (like the tunnels, elevators, laser shows, etc.). If you own RCT3
you should pick this expansion up whether you’re sick of the game or still going
strong. Soaked! adds plenty of features to lengthen the life of your
Rollercoaster Tycooning.