Game review: Zoo Tycoon

Zoo Tycoon is here to scratch the itch of any child, of any age, who has dreamed of being a zookeeper.

Your little virtual zoo looks attractive enough when you begin but when you build it up through challenge-based campaigns or in free play, the park and its wildlife really pop off the screen.

There are animal stats and interactions to amuse you, some Kinect and controller-based park encounters to really get kids - and adults - oohing and aahing. Try hand-feeding a baby antelope without making koochie-koo noises at your screen, or introducing lion cubs into the park without stopping to watch them pace around their new enclosure on awkward legs.

But there is precious little fun in Zoo Tycoon if you play through the campaign challenges, meaning you won't have time for distractions. Your lion's den might look like the happiest place on Earth but in the interests of keeping every park citizen - animal, visitor, employee - up to their ears in joy, your attention must constantly be shifting.

You must pick up the poo, hand-deliver supplies to the burger stand, commission a new toilet block, hire and fire staff, and more, all within the confines of a clumsy and inefficient menu system. It's enough to make you want to curse in fluent kangaroo.

Research is a great idea for a sim, and always has been. You can't know how to care for a specific subspecies of lion or how to set up a breeding programme if you don't hit the books - or Wikipedia. But since so much of the game's progress depends on research, it's a problem that multiple subjects cannot be researched simultaneously - especially when it's not clear how long each research block takes.

I understand this is a business simulation at its core, rather than a true successor to 2010's Kinectimals, but surely it doesn't need to be so much work for so little play. After only a couple of hours, you'll have done everything there is to do in a game that is technically without an end.

You might be charmed by Zoo Tycoon if you use Kinect to play winky faces with a young chimpanzee but chances are you'll be bored installing loos and upgrading statues while you research a gazelle, or print advertising, or water fountains, or even research research. At least Zoo Tycoon knows when to have fun with itself. If only it could have shared more of that with its players.

Platform:

Xbox One

Click here to buy Zoo Tycoon.

- TimeOut