Zogging Hell!!!

Another Ocean release, Theme Park is the Jag conversion of the hit PC strategy game from those loveable Populous authors, Bullfrog. Sharing the same engine as Syndicate but lacking the seriousness of the former, Theme Park requires you to build and run your own (surprise surprise) Theme Park. You start by inheriting a fortune, that apparently you can only use to build the biggest bestest Theme Park ever. Apparently your not the only one however as several other 'opponents' are in the money too. The graphics are very much in the cutsey variety, but everything is polished and attractive. The menus are reasonably simple to navigate around and you'll soon have your park looking the way you want it. This is where the problems start. The save game feature for Theme Park is terrible. The authors seem to believe that you will only need to save the amount of cash you have made, rather than the park layout. This means every time you switch off the Jag, your forced to start again. Highly annoying. Also there's the fairground music. This quickly grates as it repeats over and over again. Other than that Theme Park is rather good. There are loads of nice little touches; rides that break down, requiring your mechanics to race to fix them; and cleaners that tut and shake their heads as they clean up the rubbish. The staff are a tad greedy, so it pays to sack them regularly. Their wage increases seem to hover around the 10% mark. Oh to be a man who dresses up as a octupus for a living...

Zogging Hell Rating: 7/10

Cheats

All shops & rides: Sink all your money into shops research, then wait until April, two years later.

Low Cost Super-ride: When laying a track ride, first do the world's smallest track (something like this:)

OOOOO
O O
OOOOO
&& <--Gate

Then open it and immediately close it again. You can edit it now and make it huge and you'll only be charged for the first, small ride. One disadvantage: You will not win the "Biggest, tallest etc." ride of the year come awards time. Depending on how long you want to run your park, it may be better NOT to do this.

Adjust Screen Position At any time during the game press Option + L/R