Thrillville: Early impressions

I don't have the time or time with the game logged yet to make a fair review, but I'll give you my initial thoughts.

First of all, it's very obviously derivative of the RCT3 engine, which we all pretty much expected. On the PS2, this means things are pretty blocky.

The first tutorial I did was this annoying thing where you have to converse with a guest, and it's boring. Really boring. The tutorial indicates you have to do this a lot.

The parks have all kinds of constraints, presumably not for game play's sake but for not killing the engine. Park areas have a power meter that you can't exceed, and you can do at most six coasters in any park.

The UI isn't bad, and in fact coaster building goes much faster with a lot of the same track pieces, but without things like lifts and special pieces. Authenticity is not something you're going to find here if you're a coaster purist, so don't expect it.

Overall, it's RCT for Dummies. I think there's a certainly an audience for it, but it's not the RCT2 crowd, that's for sure.

Thanks for the review!

Did you notice a degradation in perfomance as you added rides / scenery / guests?

Just as we expected...junk, lol. It's definatly not for me.

sounds killer. i'm totally psyched for this game, regardless of anything. can't wait to be designing parks on bus rides from maine to new york and riding coasters! :)

Sounds like a complete buzz-killer.

No lifts or "special pieces" in coaster building? Then I'm guessing it's similar to Sim-Coaster or Sim-Themepark where you absolutely cannot make a wrong coaster. Are physics even half-way realistic?

I'm betting that the mini-games are what saves this game... I might wind up waiting until this winds up as a bargin-bin game if it really is too Sim Coaster-like.

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neilpeart said:
sounds killer. i'm totally psyched for this game, regardless of anything. can't wait to be designing parks on bus rides from maine to new york and riding coasters!

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Based on what Jeff is saying based on performance on a console, I'm not confident it will be even that "good" on a PSP. Please give us your review when get it. I'm going to pass unless I hear a few good PSP reviews. (Now excuse me...I'm off to buy the Family GUy video game :) )

right on. hey i've been thinking family guy might be cool, if you pick it up can you let us know if it's any good? by the way, if you havn't played the new medal of honor on psp, it's so sick, i highly reccomend it. by long and far the best FPS on a portable i've ever seen

I picked it up on day-1 [The Family Guy game]. Let's put it this way... if you're a fan of the show, you'll like it. If you liked the Futurama game that came out a couple years ago, you'll like this game. It's decent, but if you stripped the game of its Family Guy name & characters, it would be a very bland game.

The reviewers from Gamespot & IGN were right, but I thourally enjoy the game. It has a few hidden jokes, and it's fun when you play as Stewie because he has a weapon as well as the mind-control device. Peter is the next best character, but Brian's only ability is to sneak around & hide in shadows, and it's no Splinter Cell.

Still, I like it and if you're a big fan of the show, you'll like it too... especially if you can find the game for $20.00 which it was recently on sale for at Circuit City, I think.

As for Thrillville... somehow, I don't think it's going to be worth $40.00... but if it's on sale or for $29.99, I think I might pick it up, but I need some unbiased reviews that aren't coaster-nuts just to get an outside opinion.

right on. i do dig the show alot, so i'll probally check it out. although i'm gonna find the 2 full seasons sets (1&2, 3) they released on UMD before that. hopefully by then the game will be cheaper! but yeah, i'll be picking up thrillville tuesday, i'll let you know how it is. i gotta say though, i'm gonna enjoy any game that i can get a few beers in me, turn it on and build and ride coasters, but i'll be as unbiased as i can. some ppl didn't like the godfather on psp but i was addicted to it untill i finished it, so keep that in mind! :)

I purchased thrillville last night (after years of waiting for a console game) and I haven't played it for more than 2 hours, but I am not the biggest fan. First of all, there is only one park that you can be in (which is thrillville) it is already somewhat built. I can't figure out how to look at the park in an aerial view (other than the map) therefore you have to design the park on a 3d flat plane view. When you place a coaster, there are specific spots where you can put them (I guess a little more realistic). Same with the stalls and rides, there are only select "areas" that you can put them in. Talking with the guests is cool, because you can get their opinion on the park, and take it from there.

I need more time with the game (damn school), but so far, not as impressed as I was with RCT and RCT2

Talking with guests is f'ing boring and pointless. Seriously, give me the summary view of opinions. I don't need to hear some animated little twit say the same crap over and over.

so far it's pretty awesome (how cool is it to be building and riding coasters on a portable??!!) my only thing is i wish they included lifts, brakes, etc at your disposal on coasters, and all the different kinds of rides RCT3 had (log flume, haunted house, rafts, etc.) overall, a cool game so far

2 more negatives-training employees takes FOREVER. Each time you train, it takes you to a five minute mini game.

The missions in RCT-RCT 2 were long term objectives established at the beggining of the game. This was good because it gave you complete autonomy over your park.

This version constantly updates you with a new mission, so frequently that you can't even keep track.

I'm heading back to my mom's house for the holiday, and I'm going to get RCT 2. This leaves one question: any one want Thrillville for like 25$ :)

ok, so i won't lie, as i have written on here, i was hoping for basically a RCT3 that actually ran well. thrillville is much, much different from any game i have ever played. it's much more like half fantasy, half traditional type game, with a ton of mini games that at first i wasn't psyched about, but after playing this game all day, i'm really liking. the ride building is nowhere near the realism as RCT3 or ultimate coaster or something like that, but it sure is fun. my only minor complaint is the power level alloted for areas of the park don't always allow giant rides, and there are designated areas for rides so you can't put everything everywhere. personally, i think this game is killer and once you stat playing and realize it's nothing at all what you are expecting it to be, it starts to be a REALLY fun, super addictive game. added to that is if you have the psp version there's wireless multiplayer stuff and of course that you can be on the train going to work running a theme park is pretty sick

by the way, that being said, i still hope for a game very close to RCT3 with the absolute freedom, every kind of ride, and coaster cam to come around on either console or PC.

I'll give you $20 for it ;)

by the way, from what i've read, there's absolutly no difference between the psp and other versions, in fact some are saying because of the smaller flat lcd screen it actually looks better

You haven't read enough. Apparently there are significant reductions in the mini-games. And keep in mind that you're looking at a smaller screen. Take the same number of pixels and put them on my 37" HDTV and it won't look nearly as good.

well see, it dosn't matter if that number of pixles won't look nearly as good on your 37" HDTV because, well, PSP dosn't hook into TV's! :)

You were the one making the comparison, not me.