WaterPark -Tycoon (Digital Download Card)

Waterpark is a simple and effective sim game; a great place to start in this genre. First up - this digital download is 3rd party and although it stipulates one download, you will be able to install in on more than PC/laptop in your home. The 3D engine runs in high end resolutions and allows effective panning and zooming. The detail of the animation of the guests is actually very good. Life in your water park looks very realistic. The interface is fairly straightforward and there's more detail hidden away, which is easily overlooked unless you play the simple and unobtrusive tutorial. The complexity scales through three set missions. The gameplay is limited. It's unlikely that after completing the missions, you would spend much time in sandbox mode. However for a tenner, you'll have had many hours of play. My seven year old loves it and she finds the game easy to use and can build credible parks. In fact, whilst playtesting this game, I have to admit that it's actually a pleasant time sink. It's not trying to be SimCity, either in scale or complexity, however as water parks go, there's enough variation to enjoy the missions through. I never found a speed up option which would have been handy, 4/5 for older more experienced players. 5/5 for younger or less experienced ones.

Dreadful game. I absolutely love Tycoon style games such as Rollercoaster tycoon, Zoo tycoon, Theme Park etc. I was really excited for this as the graphics looked ok and it looked my sort of game. I love to build and manage things. After an initial issue with the download, I managed to get the thing installed. Read the brief PDF instruction manual and then had a go at the Free Play mode. What an utterly poor attempt at what could have been a superb game! The gameplay was so incredibly slow that after playing for half an hour and building a basic pool with a couple of slides, not one 'little person' had even made it into the pool! It had taken them that long to walk from the entrance to the changing rooms. The graphics were ok but the game play is sticky. Controls are sticky and don't always work, and when they do work they take ages. It takes a long time to scroll around because the screen seems to be in some sort of 'freeze time'. Sometimes the 'close' button on boxes doesn't work so you can't get out of them. The people walk so slowly, almost as if they are stuck in mud. I'm not running this game on an old computer either so don't understand what on earth is going on. I tried to save my game and it took about five minutes for the screen to 'unfreeze' and then a further 5 for me to be able to save it. I don't actually know why I bothered as I certainly will not be wasting any more of my life on this! Steer clear of this game- I am tempted to email the company and tell them how absolutely terrible this game is! They should offer refunds to people because it's barely playable. Stick to Rollercoaster Tycoon if you want a fun game!

NOT AS GOOD AS ROLLER COASTER TYCOON 3

I like this game, and it's one of my favourites of the "tycoon" series with its graphics being one of the best in the franchise. I'm a big fan of theme parks so this one has caught my imagination, and there's enough of challenge in there to keep me interested for a while. The digital download installation is great, no wasteful media.

I'll be honest, this game didn't work for me, it must be that my graphics card is not powerful enough which is a shame as it looked like it had potential. Very similar to Theme Park games, but with the ability to 'spray paint' paths and easily create pools with complex layouts. Unfortunately for me though it took about 10 minutes for the first guest to enter a pool as it ran in super slow motion. As a consequence I could not complete the first mission, but like I said, first impressions were good and it certainly has potential.

A fun game to play which comes in a handy download card package. The computer you use has to be up to spec but as long as that is the case then it works well. The graphics could do with a little sprucing up but as a game played by my 9 year old son, it seems to have entertainment value and keeps him amused.

This is not a bad game, but I would advise anyone buying it to check the specs carefully - I first installed it on my old pc where it wouldn't get past the opening screen and then on my laptop where it only ran at snail's pace until I set all the graphics to minimum. You also need to make sure you have a mouse as some of the controls can only be operated with a scroll wheel and there is no option to change the controls. This game is quite enjoyable but only for a limited time as there is not enough different things to do. Once you have grasped the basics of placing items and attending to the needs of the visitors you need to spend a lot of time just sitting around and waiting for enough money to buy the next thing. Eventually you get your park up to the highest level and can build the giant slides and these are fun to design and watch being used - however they are frustrating too as they can't be changed at all once built which is rather annoying if you find yours is not working well! A game with potential but not as good as I hoped.

I have no idea what this game is like as I could not download it. The website insisted the code I had was an incorrect one despite checking it several times, and two emails to the support people at Excalibur were unanswered. Poor service.