As somebody who prefers high-adrenaline rollercoasters over the teacups, visiting amusement parks may be thrilling and Planet Coaster 2 understands this nicely. Constructing your individual park within the authentic Planet Coaster stays entertaining eight years later, one thing Frontier Developments hopes to construct upon with new water park rides, improved visuals, and higher development instruments. I just lately went hands-on with the PC model, and I am assured the upcoming sequel might be well worth the admission.
Anybody aware of Planet Coaster or Planet Zoo will really feel proper at dwelling, and your purpose stays drawing in guests to earn as a lot cash as doable. This preview showcased two of the three upcoming modes – Sandbox Mode gives a satisfying degree of freedom with limitless money for flat rides, rollercoasters, and extra, whereas Profession Mode feels designed as a gradual introduction to those gameplay mechanics.
Beginning with the Profession Mode’s third chapter, what follows is the kind of surprisingly fulfilling problem you’d solely ever discover in fiction. A rival theme park builder has purchased land inside your park and imposed uncommon development restrictions, which forces you to seek out artistic workarounds. Profession Mode makes use of a rating system that swaps the unique Planet Coaster’s star rankings for as much as 4 medals, and clearing the preliminary ‘Bronze’ challenges is unsurprisingly straightforward.
This mission highlights the brand new water points of interest nicely, which supply extra pleasure than the unique sport’s log flumes. Now you can set down swimming pools and water slides wherever you want, including some welcome selection. Slides at all times require a touchdown pool beneath them, or you may create a separate giant pool for friends to make use of at their leisure. Simply be sure to have sufficient lifeguards on obligation. Surrounding them with pretty surroundings will increase a trip’s status score, although it is a barely shallow strategy as you may dump something round these rides with out constant theming.
As somebody who struggles with creating attention-grabbing customized creations, utilizing pre-designed rides through the blueprints system over making your individual is undoubtedly useful. Nonetheless, some noticeably fiddly gameplay mechanics hamper this. Connecting your theme park friends to every trip requires laying down paths, but they do not at all times join regardless of stopping proper in entrance of a trip or theme park entrance. It is barely irritating as I can not inform what I am doing flawed in these moments. Fortunately, new paving strategies like drawing and stamping instruments make the broader course of extra handy.
Powering up rides wants a fragile steadiness as putting turbines too near an attraction can cut back the status, however putting them additional away means the mechanic wants longer to achieve them. Making a park and letting issues run is not sufficient; you want workers and services, however wages and development come at a price. Nonetheless, rising to the problem can really feel rewarding, even when successfully spaced land improvement is just not my specialty.
Watching these rides in motion exhibits how intently the staff paid consideration to real-life rollercoaster designs, and that is notably clear from the first-person digital camera. As a substitute of simply watching from above like some all-powerful adrenaline-fuelled deity, you may swap views and witness a trip unfold in both testing or whereas it is actively open. That is nothing new for the sequel, however seeing these rides in motion has me itching to e-book Thorpe Park and Alton Towers tickets. How a lot care Frontier is giving Planet Coaster 2 is straight away clear.
I additionally get pleasure from how one can customise rollercoaster trains with extra designs, reminiscent of mild bars on the aspect. Duplicating these throughout the whole set of trains directly can also be useful, conserving designs constant whereas eradicating any potential tedium doing that for each particular person cart would contain. An choice to create customized trains and authentic mascots could be good, although the present decisions on each facets are nonetheless nice.
Although Planet Coaster 2 does not fully flip the script, evolutionary gameplay adjustments and visible upgrades imply constructing your theme park feels higher than ever. I hope Frontier will handle my extra minor frustrations, but this hands-on session exhibits the potential of the upcoming amusement park sim. I will be eager to take a look at extra when Planet Coaster 2 launches on November 6 for PC, Xbox Collection X/S, and PS5.