The fiscal art of throwing up

By Peter Eley

Roller Coaster Tycoon

****

Microprose,br>
$99.95

PC G

A devious economics teacher has disguised a complex marketing assignment as a game set in an amusement park and called it Roller Coaster Tycoon.

Just joking. But it could almost be true - you can hardly fail to learn something useful from the detailed business model of this excellent game in which you have to build and manage your own Disneyland.

A Big Brother surveillance system lets you track every one of your thousands of customers and see how much they brought into the park.

Click on one and a window pops up telling you how much of their hard-earned they've spent on rides, hot dogs, and tacky souvenirs from your cunningly-placed shops.

Cash flow is vital if you are to build the new rides your continually jaded customers demand.

And repairs and maintenance are essential - it's impossible not to feel a pang when a carload of customers plunges off a faulty rollercoaster, especially if they still had money to spend.

Of course, it isn't the first Disneyland sim - Bullfrog's Theme Park came out four years ago, and the graphics and building techniques could be straight from SimCity.

God-game fans will also probably recognise some elements from Transport Tycoon Deluxe - not surprising as both are designed by Chris Sawyer.

The basic scenario is that a holding company has secretly bought up five defunct amusement parks. Your job is to make them profitable.

Once you've done that, your role as a gun amusement park executive gets tougher and tougher and all of your entrepreneurial skills will be put to the test.

Like real life parks, people demand bigger and better thrills. Getting your research teams to invent new ways to make them throw up is the key to success.

There's more to a theme park than making people sick and as an executive you have to know about real estate, accountancy, engineering, people management and entertainment.

If that sounds serious, don't worry. Roller Coaster Tycoon is easy to pick up and lots of fun to play.

The interface is easy and much of the business stuff is self-managing, although your actions determine how much money the park makes, or loses.

The best part is designing huge roller coasters and hearing your customers scream as they hurtle down gravity-defying slopes.

And as your creations get higher, twistier and more vomit-inducing, it is hard not to ask yourself: Why would any sane person want to pay good money to scare themselves witless?

Required: Pentium 90, 16mb ram, 4xCD-Rom. Recommended: Pentium 200 MMX, 32mb ram, 8xCD-Rom.

* Send your comments e-mail to peter_eley@herald.co.nz