Wildlife Park is a zoo simulation game on the lines of Zoo Tycoon. In fact, it’s almost exactly like Zoo Tycoon. There are a few more animals and buildings, and the workers are more diversified, but the main essentials are the same: build a successful zoo with happy animals.
Players can choose to play tutorials, campaigns or sandbox mode. The tutorials are excellent, and do a great job of walking players through the game’s mechanics and goals. The campaigns are the same type found in most simulation games, either build a park from scratch or improve an existing one, with certain fixed goals to be met in order to be successful in the mission. For unrestricted gameplay, the FreePlay mode offers hours of free construction.
The main difference in the games is that Wildlife Park offers more variety in building options, such as building outbuildings, attractions, landscaping, and plants and feeders for the animals. This gives players a lot more room for expression. The workers also appear to be a bit more diversified in function.
The interface is decent, but the text messages are badly designed: the text runs off the screen on either side if very long. It’s also difficult to select an existing item sometimes, as the exact pixel evidently has to be clicked on. The menus offer an adequate amount of information.
The graphics aren’t quite as good as Zoo Tycoons, which itself isn’t what anyone could call state of the art visually. The animals here all have good movements and animations, but the details in the artwork itself aren’t very high in resolution. The sound is more fun, a jungle beat!
Basically, this game is pretty much the same as Zoo Tycoon, which is not a bad thing, both are fun games with cute animals. If you or your kids have finished all the missions in Zoo Tycoon and still want more animal theme fun, then you may want to look at this program. If you don’t have Zoo Tycoon, then it’s pretty much a toss-up between the two, except I will say Zoo Tycoon is more of a polished program overall, but, Wildlife Park costs less.
An important note to parents: The trappers (workers who catch and contain animals) can kill the animals in Wildlife Park. This may upset some children.
Gameplay: 7
It’s fun to build a zoo and watch all the animals. There are some oddities in gameplay mechanics, but for the most part things run smoothly. The interface is adequate.
Graphics: 7
While the animals move fluidly, they appear somewhat pixilated.
Sound: 7
The music is a fun jungle beat! The sound effects are good, too, but nothing spectacular.
Difficulty: Medium
The game isn’t too easy, nor is it extremely difficult.
Concept: 7
It’s a copycat of Zoo Tycoon, with nothing original to offer. However, the presentation is good and the program does what it does well.
Overall: 7
A decent simulation with cute animals, always a sure bet for kids and all lovers of nature. There are a few rough edges, but there are also more things to do than in Zoo Tycoon, and the price is better.
