Thanks to RollerCoaster Tycoon World lowering expectations, Planet Coaster will be hailed the official sequel that should have been-at least by players who aren't into the even more old-fashioned Parkitect, currently in Early Access.

Planet Coaster is a familiar, warm bath of a thing, relaxing and constant. She walks away thinking, вЂњat least the queue was short.вЂќ When my rollercoaster finally opens only one brave woman tries it. The thorough testing process gives you a heatmap that highlights problem areas and notes when nausea and fear ratings are high. I test repeatedly as I build to avoid the heartbreak of finishing only to realise the first corner is too sharp, though testing on an incomplete track sacrifices the lives of many crash-test dummies. This is one clear improvement from RollerCoaster Tycoon 3: autocomplete is fast and doesn't return those вЂњStation is not long enoughвЂќ errors. Manipulating every section of track down to the angle of banking is a bit much, but slotting canned cobra loops and helix swirls into my design works well, and it's easy to let the autocomplete tie it all up at the end. Nothing I make can compete, but I still design my own coasters. ThereвЂ™s already a huge variety, so if you want Hogwarts or a Millennium Falcon, you can find them. To make up for that you can copy blueprints from other players on the Steam Workshop. More significantly, there are fewer rides than in RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, even before its expansions. Guests have better AI here, sticking together in family groups, though during their rush to get on rides they clip through each other creating monsters of jumbled faces and limbs. Planet Coaster feels so similar to RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 it's impossible not to compare. It takes the edge off, leaving me sitting there like Mr Bean yawning as everyone else screams. In Planet Coaster the rides are quieter, and instead of wind I mostly hear other passengers babbling away like Sims. I still remember the kerchunking anticipation in RCT 3 as a lift chain pulled me up to a summit, and the howling windrush of the fall. In Planet Coaster the rides are quieter, and instead of wind I mostly hear other passengers babbling away like Sims.ДЄctually riding the coasters doesnвЂ™t offer the same rush as it did in RollerCoaster Tycoon 3вЂ™s evocative first-person mode.

Customers complain about queues endlessly, even after I hire entertainers like a cow who bounces on her udders repeating, вЂњBoing!вЂќ There's nothing fun about fiddling with pavement this much, though presumably it's necessary to keep the AI from getting confused. More than once I've designed a coaster only to realise the fiddly queue won't connect and I need to go back and edit the original path again. Like city simulators with grids that make every city look American, the pathing of Planet Coaster comes with implicit assumptions about what you want to build baked in. Trying to recreate something like Melbourne's Luna Park, where everything is anarchically plonked down within a big triangle you explore as you please, doesn't work so well. Planet Coaster is made to create a certain kind of park, the guided experience where you turn a corner and suddenly see something amazing from the perfect angle.

Planet coaster multiplayer