Thrillville: Off the Rails (Wii) Review

Thrillville: Off the Rails is just like a rollercoaster. It's pretty neat and exciting at the time, but the fun is over way too fast. The theme park building game from the creators of Rollercoaster Tycoon can be seen on the outset as the spiritual su...

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Thrillville: Off the Rails is just like a rollercoaster. It’s pretty neat and exciting at the time, but the fun is over way too fast. The theme park building game from the creators of Rollercoaster Tycoon can be seen on the outset as the spiritual successor to Bullfrogs timely and excellent classic Theme Park, yet the game has troubles figuring out just what exactly it is.

In this sequel to the original Thrillville, players get the chance to create a custom character who is gifted with the deed to a running a theme park by a crazy rollercoaster building scientist who looks like a cross between The Wiggles and Doc Brown from Back to the Future. As the game starts, youre thrusted into a pre-built theme park and are tasked with adding and improving it.

Every ride and shop in the game can be played as a mini-game, ranging from shooting galleries to top down racers. While some of the games may be entertaining, they all resemble flash games you can play for free on the Internet. There is even an included Party Mode specifically for playing these mini-games by yourself or with friends. Unfortunately, these mini-games get way too much prominence in Thrillville, so much so that the park building simulation side suffers because of it as the game degenerates into yet another mini-game-fest. Younger kids may end up getting a kick out of playing all the games and avoiding some of the park simulation.

Like Bullfrogs Theme Park, you have control over various micro-management aspects like ticket prices, ride research, gauges for your visitors happiness and satisfaction, plus even decisions like what magazines your theme park should run an ad campaign in. Needless to say, there are a lot of navigation menus varying in complexity which might seem confusing for younger players to figure out. Thrillville has the micro-management of a Sim, yet the general cheesy presentation seems to targets a younger audience, which does not seem to add up. Some Sim aspects work well, yet some like talking to park goers about their satisfaction with your park are made mundane by long lists of tacky dialogue. Overall the simulation and management features dont feel like they were meshed together well, leaving some aspects a little more top heavy than others.

With money raised, players can purchase new rides which can be placed in any of the empty lots of the theme park. You do not get the option to pick the boundaries of the park, but instead only get to fiddle with the space you are provided as each park has a number of lots which you have to squeeze your rides and shops into. There is no need to build paths, ride queues or anything else, just place your rides down and rotate them how you see fit. This makes building a simple task and if you play smartly you are unlikely to run out of money any time soon. Some of the complexities such as placing ride queues and building paths are what made previous theme park simulation games so addictive. Trying to squeeze the most out of the space you are given and guide your theme park goers onto the rides made the games interesting. Its a pity that the Sim aspects appear to have been dumbed down.

Building and riding rollercoasters is one of the main attractions of the game and thankfully it is handled well by Frontier, who also developed the great Rollercoaster Tycoon games. The Wii controls really show a purpose when laying down the track as you hold the Wii remote as if it was a piece of rollercoaster track. Hold it straight and itll go straight, tilt it down and your track will dip down, pull it up to create hills and tilt and twist the Wii remote to create various corners. It really does feel intuitive and makes track laying a breeze. Special thrill pieces of track which include things like drops, exploding TNT and loops can be added to your rollercoaster to give it that little bit extra. The best thing about building your rollercoaster creation is that you can ride it from a 1st person view and look at the sights as you rocket around the track.

The visuals of the game are colourful and the game runs at a steady framerate and supports widescreen. The graphics wont blow your mind, but they get the job done nicely. There are even a few cutscenes from the crazy theme park scientist that while cheesy, suit the games presentation.

The game uses the Nunchuk for movement and the Wii remote to look around. Tilting the Nunchuk also works well for rotating rides and shops before placing them down. Some of the mini-games use the Wii Remotes functions such as the pointer in shooting gallery games yet others, like the side-on motorcross bike game, fail to use any motion control when it could have benefited greatly. In any case, the mini-games use a bare minimum of motion controls which harkens back to their days as flash games.

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Thrillville: Off the Rails is a game that suffers from an identity crisis. On the one hand, it can be seen as theme park creator and Sim. But on the other, its just another mini-game-fest that Im sure weve all seen before in the Wiis library of games. The game feels like it’s a too little of a Sim and too much of a mini-game compilation. Even then its hard to find the target audience that would enjoy this game to its full potential. Younger players get mini-games with a strange Sim game tacked on and older players get a shallow and cheesy Sim experience with some flash mini-games added to the mix. Some of the mini-games make great little multiplayer bouts, but they all tire way too fast. The intuitive rollercoaster building helps bring this game up from a relatively downhill ride.

Graphics 7.0

Gameplay 5.0

Sound 6.0

Tilt 6.0

Value 7.0

Daniel Miller

Daniel is an avid gamer and online journalist. Starting with the GameBoy, he has followed gaming ever since. When he is not stomping goombas he is working as a news journalist in sunny Queensland.

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