Coaster

The Good
The game is really good at what it does. It has a really easy editor to use to create roller coasters. There are several options and the physics seem realitic. The three demensional ride through is the best I have seen in this genre of amusment park simulators. I have played both Theme Park in which the ride through is just the same movie, and I have played Roller Coaster Tycoon, were you can't ride at all. The ride through really is the highlight of the game.

The Bad
The problem with the game isn't anything that it does wrong. The problem is all the things that it doesn't do. You can dseign a roller coaster on a flat expanse of land. There is no landscape, nothing changes. In Roller Coaster tycoon you can theme the ride and add scenery, not here. You can't build wooden roller coasters. There really is no point to even building the ride except to ride it in the ride through mode. You can also have it evaluated, and find out what a panel of judges think, but really who cares? It's not much of a game. It's a neat, easy CAD for roller coaster design, and even at that it is limited.

The Bottom Line
This is a roller coaster design program. There are three "modes" in the game. The design mode, ride mode, and evalute mode. In these modes you can as chance would have it, design, ride, and have evalutated a roller coaster. You can't build a park or use the roller coaster for anything. You also can't add scenary or theme the ride. The game is very limited. It is basically a creative tool. Its fun game for a while, and interesting if your interested in the evolution of theme park based games. Eventually you just kind of run out of things to do eventually.

The Good
It's a lot of fun the build your own coaster. But you can do that in a lot of other games too. But what's great about Coaster is that you can ride the coasters in a first person perspective. Good graphics. It's also really easy to design your own coaster. I had trouble learning how to custom make coasters in RollerCoaster Tycoon but this only took a few minutes.

The Bad
Too many limitations. Your coaster can only be so big and so tall and it can only use so many parts. The people who rate the game are stupid. You have a realistic coaster and they say it sucks. You have a coaster that goes 200 mph with 30 loops which would break your neck and they give it a high rating. The game could use a little more scenery. There isn't enough sound.

The Bottom Line
I like this game more than RollerCoaster Tycoon.

The Good
I liked the game's ease of use and sense of humor--the folks who ride the coaster make some hilarious comments sometimes. The point of designing a roller coaster is riding it and getting feedback. I also liked the fact that since the number of elements are limited, you're forced to design within the rules of the game and come up with a design the riders like. It's a fun challenge.

The Bad
Like some other reviewers have said, you can't do a wooden coaster or add scenery or anything. But again, this was designed about 15 years ago and back then the graphics were pretty sophisticated.

The Bottom Line
I've played other coaster design games and, while some are more realistic graphically perhaps than this one, I like this one because of the rider feedback. In other games you design a coaster and no one gives any critique...not quite as satisfying for some reason. It's so simple to build a coaster. You can design something fun in 5 minutes and ride it. It's really easy to use. The physics seem pretty realistic and the game's simplicity make the play-again factor very high.