Anybody get Soaked! yet?

LOL, you can read EGM and learn that, Jeff ;).

So, does anybody have any pix of the new types of coasters? I'd like to see the Stormrunner coaster myself. I won't get it for a couple weeks yet.

Yeah, it'll be better with the inevitable patch. ;)

Would that be the patch that 'puf suggested may be available to those who decided not to contribute any further to ataris profits after this fiasco Jeff?

I for one went into town today with cash in hand eager to make a purchase and came home with two shiny new DVDs that play perfectly with no lag and no frustration. And at less cost!

RCT3: Soaked - I stayed dry :)

-Jimvy! *** Edited 6/25/2005 1:02:35 AM UTC by invy***

For the first time in RCT history, I'm not anxious to purchase a title. The limited feedback from people who bought it so far (not just here) isn't too encouraging.

I'll get it when I get around to it.

I feel the same. I may get it at next pay day, but I have my car note, plus I was planning on a trip to meet a friend in D.C. on the 4th, then SFA the next day. Soaked? Mabye, maybe not.

I'll get it eventually, then probably write another 4 page letter to Atari hoping they listen this time...

We always will have something to say to them, and If this expansion blows I'll write a 6 page letter with everything thats wrong or needs to be fixed or added. I just hope its all its hyped up to be, then again I dont' expect that seeing how we were highly dissapointed with the release of the buggy RCT3 (before patches). I hope the expansion doesn't have bugs as well.

Maybe it's just me, but I think the lack of posts about it is probably a good thing, really. Remember all the posts complaining about it when it first came out? There are much, much fewer of those, and I know for a fact that there are a ton of people playing it.

Anyway, I beta-tested Soaked, and I bought the full version. I think the semi-public beta test removed a LOAD of bugs that would have been there otherwise. So, no, it doesn't miraculously turn RCT3 into an FPS display, but it is far better than the original.

Or the lack of posts here means that the coaster enthusiast crowd has long since given up on the game.

Still being positive I see. That's the spirit people!

Jeff, Its not that we havn't given up, we are still here waiting for a miracle, unfortunatly RCT3 was not one of them. Most likely I'll still play it, but it could be better. I don't think the whole crowd has given up, some will still hang on and wait.

I got it.

Well, lets see. Instead of fixing the strata, and adding a different coaster type, they just added a whole new (complicated) coaster type. Plus, in an effort to make it play 'better', I can't set certain visual options.

It is a bit better, I'm not impressed. I don't feel cheated, but it could (should) have been better from the beginning. This still doesn't fix many of the problems I had in the game in the first place. I will admit that it does run better on my home PC. But, then, any little bit helps the first crap that was released. I'll give a proper review when I've had a few days to tinker around.

Well my fireworks are making the game crash and having weird drag effects. Any idea why? Anyone with good computing skills want to help?

Because the game was poorly coded. No one here can help you with that.

I'm not sure what to think of Soaked. For me, it hasn't added enough to the game, or fixed enough of it's problems, to make me want to play RCT3. I still find the game tedious, and very buggy. Having said that, my 8 year old son has been playing it practically non-stop since Saturday, and he loves it. So I guess if a 37 year old coaster entusiast is Atari's target audience (which I'm sure it isn't) the expansion is a failure. On the other hand if an 8 year old is their target, then I'd say they did a good job.

^I am one of the 37 year old coaster-enthusiasts and I too feel left out of the target audience.

Apart from actually running worse on my pc (I couldn´t complain before), tripling loading times and messing up my pre-soaked parks I feel that the additions are a result of clever marketing and not clever designing.

I just don´t care for all that mixmaster crap. The pools are funny for a few minutes but the waterslides do nothing for me. Its dingy slide OD.

I just don´t see the reason for the Hershey deal. In most parts of the world Hershey as a brand is unknown and apart from hardcore coaster-freaks no one in , say Denmark will know about Hershey park. And those people will have a hard time to figure out what they should do with the Hershey coaster. Its so sad that they finally included diagonal inversions, but they limited it in a ridiculous way.

You can still not build a single, halfway decent recreation of any rocket coaster in the world. Its only the most spectacular and popular coaster type around.

Oh, we have a re-skinned (branded) teacups ride! Am I the only one who thought it was a "homage" to Wacky Worlds?! (I am always the optimist).

Then we have another observation tower which makes the other towers in the game look stupid. Well there is a US Flag on it. WHERE IS THE FLAG MIX-MASTER?

Its not all mediocre, the giant Frisbee is great and some other stuff is fine too, but its all so uncreative!

There is nothing you can really do with all those new fllats.

What the game needs now is a re thinking of the coaster designing. They did nothing to evolve the coaster building in this otherwise brilliant game. I get the feeling that coasters (and entertaining gameplay) were sadly neglected after RCT2 (there is actually a de-evolution in RCT3 imo).

My thoughts on Soaked!:

1) Load times have increased substantially, both for the initial game load and also the subsequent level loads.

2) Ok, so they've finally acknowledged that they can build 'special track pieces' (eg inversions) at 45 degree angles...but why have they only done this for one coaster type (the aforementioned Storm-Runner recreation)? Is it that difficult for Frontier to recruit a bunch of code-monkeys to knock-up multiple-angle track pieces for the other coasters? This is my major bug-bear. I’m fed up with having to build ‘square’ coasters with each inversion at a 90 degree angle to the other track pieces. I want my coasters to flow….but alas, they presently don’t.

3) Its still not possible to build wall-pieces on the same squares as footpaths (without cheating). Yes, I've read David Braben's response to this on the Atari forum...but I still don't buy it. Surely they can work around this peep collision-detection problem?

4) The pools are fun! Seriously...building a slide that'll launch a peep 50ft into the air (and over an adjacent flat ride) is deeply rewarding. It's somewhat akin to playing Worms on the PC...can you judge the angle of trajectory correctly so that the peep lands in the pool...and not face-first onto the path?!

5) Can’t Frontier / Atari at least finish the existing themes? Why are we still missing certain entertainers / food stalls for the themes included with the initial game? This goes back to my gripe about missing track pieces…are they too cheap to at least finish the game they started? After all, they (Frontier) seem to advertise every month for staff in the UK magazine ‘Edge’…surely they must’ve recruited someone by now to carry out this low-level task?

6) The new flat rides are superb. Far more detailed than the bunch included with the game proper (eg. the horrific, low-detail carousel….*shudder*…). More please!

So, a mixed bunch. Some good, a lot still bad. Is it worth it…yes. Purely for the pools: they are fun. The rest of the pack varies in quality. If only they could sort out those remaining weaknesses… *** Edited 7/1/2005 9:13:27 PM UTC by aanatpel*** *** Edited 7/1/2005 9:34:46 PM UTC by aanatpel***

I will say I like launching peeps off of slides as well. It's just so fun. As far as performance, not much better but hey, at least they're trying right. ;)

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Plus, in an effort to make it play 'better', I can't set certain visual options.

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I've read this a few places and quite frankly this is enough to stop me from buying the game.

I downloaded the Hershey demo for that coaster competition and it does this as well - let me just say it greatly underestimated my computer's ability. It's so bad that I can't even stand to play it (and for the chance at $100,000 even)

No reason for me to pick this up as long as the game sets the options and doesn't let me - I won't be able to stomach it anyway.

Amazing how quickly they've managed to totally turn away one of their most hardcore supporters in 8 short months. :(

Actually, Gonch, once I figured out how to do it today (not in the user guide), I realized that you can get all the previous options, and more. It actually made me like it better.

Still not a vastly improved game, but they did improve the visual options menu, I just couldn't figure it out after I first got it. You have to check an ambiguous box with an abbreviation I didn't know at first, LOD (level of Detail).

Well, that's good. It seems incredibly stupid to not let the end user adjust settings to his or her own preference. Glad it's possible.

Put me back into the "whenever I get to it" column.