If roller coasters are humanity's way of injecting ourselves with a dose of fear just to stay on our toes, then water parks are our way of turning our ancient enemy the sea into a captive entertainer (or was it aquariums?). Either way, Frontier hopes to satisfy all of humanity's quirky daily cravings by adding water slides and wave pools to the teacups and coasters of management sims with Planet Coaster 2. I gave it a quick test ride, and while two hours of hands-on time couldn't give me a full taste of the building game's creative tools, I was quietly pleased with the jungle-themed pool I installed in the ground and the little shark mascot I hired to patrol it.
Much of what made up the first game returns. The focus is on creating your own rides and attractions from scratch, rather than relying on pre-built roller coasters and water slides (though these will still be available for those who prefer to pre-install them). The incentive to piece things together even extends to snack bars and changing rooms that can be placed inside the shells of other buildings like modular toy models. I've made some very basic guest facilities, a row of food and drink stalls, and two gift shops that sit inside the same modular shell. But judging by the crazy creations of previous gamers (there's an Alien-themed ride and an alarming number of “euthanasia roller coasters”), you'll be able to do much better than I did.
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There are still plenty of off-road vehicles available that allow you to shape, sculpt, level, and smooth the ground to make way for your park’s main attractions. I dug a crater-like hole and carved out the subterranean rock to create a shallow cave. Then I raised the soil on one side of my crater to create a shadow-casting mini-mountain. Once all that was set up, it was time to see what splash pools were possible.
Apart from a large pool with kidney bean shaped pre-set paddle palaces and a perfect for a wave machine, some come with pre-installed water channels. You can also design your own pools, of course, drawing an outline along the flat ground and choosing the depth, tile style or whether you want a nice terracotta path surrounding it, for example. A tab with some extras adjacent to the pool allows you to decorate your splash areas with diving boards, step ladders, air mattresses, sun loungers and life rings.
Lifeguards are also essential to keeping each pool’s safety rating high, with their effective range posted along the floor by a large blue zone sign. At this point, I began to envy my splashing guests. It was almost painful to contemplate this summer paradise in the leaf-strewn winds of approaching autumn. So I hired a man dressed as a shark to cheer me on (and the guests, I suppose).
I wish I had delved deeper into the piece-by-piece waterslide design, which is where most returning players will want to focus their efforts. You'll be able to put together a series of slippery slides, similar to the roller coasters in the first game. But in my haste, I went straight to the pre-made ones. There are long rafting rides, steep and twisty bodyboard tubes, and a familiar waterslide with a big, prominent bowl at the end, like a long poo-poo toilet that spins around before dropping out the bottom. I've always liked that. Although not as much as a lazy river (another attraction you can build).
Unfortunately, none of these fit the surroundings of my pool paradise. So I dove into the scenery menu and placed a large coral reef boulder in the middle of the water, then filled the whole thing in with a “tropical vegetation” brush that generously sprinkled the borders of my canyon with palm trees and shrubs. You can also specify the scale of certain scenery objects, making them super-large or adorablely small—something that wasn't possible in the previous game. That little addition alone is probably enough to make any Planet Coaster addict out there sit up in their chair and cross their fingers in dark glee.
Everything I've covered so far has been in open creative mode with unlimited money enabled. I also had the opportunity to try out a campaign scenario that limited my money and gave me a few goals (build two pools and get a “thrill” level from the guests, as long as everything I did was limited to one side of a two-sided plot of land). Fraser said in his review that the campaign from the first Planet Coaster wasn't really its strongest point. I haven't played that scenario enough to see if it's an improvement, but I can say that I enjoyed my time there more once the pressure of a goal evaporated and I was free to create my tropical valley.
Before my time with the preview build was up, I wanted to see if that traditional theme park feature remained intact: the first-person camera. And yes, it's there, letting you not only slide down the toilet or squeeze nervously at the top of a long roller coaster, but also peer through the eyes of your fellow employees. As the shark mascot, for example, or as the roller coaster attendant Jibbidy Joe McJoppolly, whose name I made up and resolutely wrote down. Thank goodness they let you name things—that's the true test of a game that encourages creativity.
Planet Coaster 2 is out November 6, deep in the land of ugh autumn. I skipped the previous game and Planet Zoo's animal management. As someone who shrugs off rollercoasters and feels a vague sadness at encountering any zoo animal, I had no interest. But I do love sliding down a plastic gut in an inflatable donut and then landing face down in chlorinated water. It's great. So maybe the blue skies and bluer pools of this sequel are where I'll jump in. We'll see.