[typing]
Planet Coaster has been one of my most anticipated PC games
ever since it was announced by that title at E3 2015.
And now that it's finally out of early access,
it's time to take a look at the full release.
This is a game very much in the vein of Theme Park and Roller Coaster Tycoon,
which makes sense, seeing as it's a game by Frontier Developments.
Yep, the same developer behind space trucking sim Elite Dangerous,
although their involvement with park management games goes back much further,
with titles like Scream Ride,
Zoo Tycoon 2013,
Coaster Crazy,
Thrillville, Roller Coaster Tycoon 3,
and even the Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 expansions,
all being developed by them over the years.
Planet Coaster begins with an avatar creation process which seems important,
but this is pretty much the first and last time you'll ever see it.
Maybe they'll do something more with avatars in the future,
but as of now, the only thing they do is appear on this world map
alongside your friends acting as Steam Workshop shortcuts,
and I think they might show up at random in other people's parks
if you're playing online.
And yes, this is a game with online functionality,
but it's not a multiplayer game,
nor does it require an always-on Internet connection.
Once it authenticates itself with Denuvo servers after installation,
you can play offline and dive into the meat of Planet Coaster,
which is the single-player Career, Sandbox and Challenge modes.
Each one of these plays using the same tools, just different rules,
and the overview for fools is the Career mode
gives you a somewhat linear set of maps and objectives to complete,
Sandbox mode lets you do anything at any time
with no restrictions to creative freedom,
and Challenge mode is like a mix of the two,
giving you lots of creative choices,
alongside a set of objectives to complete and a budget to maintain.
Speaking of budget and objectives and all that,
there are no surprises as to how Planet Coaster plays,
if you've messed with any notable park management game in the last 20-odd years.
You pick a map or a scenario to play
and are presented with a plot of undeveloped land to do with as you see fit
within the confines of however much profit you can generate.
There are indeed roller coasters–
plenty of them, of course–
but the majority of things you'll see and do have nothing to do with them.
Attractions abound in Planet Coaster,
with thrill rides, carousels, log flumes, train tracks,
and all manner of stuff in between to keep visitors occupied.
There are also employees to hire and train,
shops to build and customize,
and food and beverage needs to fulfill.
On top of that, you're going to be managing ticket prices,
cue times, litter and vomit cleanup,
and research and development on new rides and features.
It's also imperative that you maintain each ride so it doesn't break down too often,
as well as beautify your park
so that visitors get distracted by pretty things
and don't ask for a refund when it takes hours to board the teacup ride.
This is all well and good,
and absolutely the bare minimum as far as PC games about theme parks go.
The real question is whether or not
this is fun and compelling enough to play
beyond a couple of hours of screwing around.
Well, I'm happy to say that, yes, it is!
But it also doesn't do a whole lot to push the genre
beyond what we've already had in the past, either.
It's also not the only game on the block right now,
with titles like Roller Coaster Tycoon World and Parkitect
also vying for your attention.
So why bother with Planet Coaster?
Well, what it has is a very particular set of skills.
Skills its developers have acquired over a very long career.
Skills that make Planet Coaster a dream for people like you.
Potentially.
Because while Parkitect is a game aiming to mimic the gameplay and style
of the Chris Sawyer Tycoon games,
and Roller Coaster Tycoon World is a rushed-to-market anomaly
of bad timing and poor planning,
Planet Coaster picks up right where Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 left off,
but improves on that in ways that game sorely needed.
Immediately upon starting a new map,
you can tell it's a game crafted with care.
The interface feels familiar, yet modern.
The graphics look promising.
And there's this soothing soundtrack by Jim Guthrie and J.J. Ipsen playing in the background
which instills a sense of focus and calm.
[music plays]
Or maybe it sounds like the trailer to the latest award-winning indie flick reveal in 2016,
I can't quite decide.
[joyful music plays]
Planet Coaster is also just a gorgeous game,
which of course isn't necessary for the business side of things,
but it's a great plus in a 3D park sim like this.
The sound design is also right on point,
giving you all the screams, coaster whooshes,
crowd chatter and rickety mechanical audio cues
one needs to suspend disbelief.
[amusement park ambience]
You can also customize this further with ambient sound generators and music customization.
And yes, this also lets you drop in your own music tracks
to fine tune your park's audio-visual theme.
[hard rock music plays]
As you can see, it also allows you to enjoy the rides
from a first-person perspective, and man,
this really makes me wish for some VR support.
Seeing as they also made Elite Dangerous
and it uses the same Cobra Engine underneath,
I have hope for that in the future.
Speaking of engine stuff,
it apparently allows or some pretty robust terrain manipulation.
Easily the best I've seen in a park sim to date.
My jaw dropped when I saw THIS could be made,
completely from scratch,
using nothing but the base game and its included modular parts system.
In fact, it's not only optional to construct rides and buildings using a bin of parts,
it's a necessity.
The creative side of Planet Coaster
seems to be the main focus in almost all portions of the game,
perhaps to a bit of a fault.
Thankfully, there's a ton of pre-made stuff on Steam Workshop already,
so if you don't want to spend hours creating a toilet, you don't have to.
But yeah, everything from ATMs to drink stands are completely bare-bones blocks
until you add some aesthetic fluff
to make it look presentable to visitors.
And this is sadly where the experience begins to falter,
because while it's great that you have this much freedom,
it can be a huge pain to take advantage of it.
Object manipulation in complex areas is just fighting a losing battle,
as items constantly get in the way of what you're trying to click on,
and the object movements go from being too slow
to insanely sensitive, depending on the camera angle.
Path creation is also an absolute chore,
with a piece-by-piece system in place
instead of any kind of point-to-point or click-to-paint system.
Same goes for coaster creation,
which is slow and old-school in a way that
invokes frustration in lieu of happy nostalgia.
Placing pathways and coaster rails is arguably the one function
that the ill-fated Roller Coaster Tycoon World
actually pulls off better than Planet Coaster.
There's just a lot of room for improvement here.
You get used to it, but the fiddling and fighting with controls never stops,
and neither does the lack of information presented to you while building things like coasters.
There are heat maps and ratings and all that,
but it doesn't tell you HOW to improve the stats.
It's just up to you and your pain threshold for trial and error,
which is doubly annoying when you're playing a Career or a Challenge map,
where a finite amount of cash is on the line.
And then when you do get a half-decent park with a bit of money coming in,
well, so much for the challenge.
It's all but gone after that initial profit hurdle is overcome.
There's very little in the way of hassle or hardship
once you've attained any kind of steady income
and have a few trained employees roaming around doing their job.
Visitors don't seem to get bored of old rides at all.
When rides break down, they're easily fixed up in a jiffy
and no one is ever turned off by the apparent lack of safety.
And of course, no one ever dies or gets injured.
Heck, you can't even pop their balloons
or pick them up and drop them into the water anymore,
which is not a real complaint, so much as an observation to make my point.
About the worst that can happen to anyone is
sometimes they'll vomit,
and to that point, just clean it up, give them an unpoppable balloon and they'll be fine.
There are no disasters, no unexpected events,
no time limits to complete objectives,
no VIPs to give special treatment to,
nothing really beyond giving people enough affordable junk to do
while making sure everything is clean and punctual.
Even the stuff that looks like a bit of a challenge really isn't,
like how visitors demand nicer scenery around rides.
You COULD carefully plan out a lush garden for them,
complete with intricate flower beds and old-world architecture.
Or you could place a ton of freakin' flame throwers and call it a day.
The result is exactly the same, and no one ever acknowledges it.
One final thing that sucks is the performance,
which is irregular and laggy after you reach a certain point of complexity
no matter what system you play it on, it seems.
This is somewhat expected for a game like this,
being rather CPU- and GPU-intensive
with all the object and physics calculations happening on the fly.
But even on my latest PC build, I had to crank down the graphics to low
when building coasters and placing pathways in larger parks,
because the input lag just gets unbearable in those cases.
Ugh, man, it probably sounds like I hate Planet Coaster by this point,
but I assure you that is not the case.
I'm just frustrated that it comes so close to being a phenomenal game
while still succumbing to many of the same pitfalls
that so many similar park sims have in the past.
Whether or not you want to purchase this is up to your tolerance for the issues at hand.
But the asking of $45 is actually pretty decent for the potentially dozens,
or even hundreds, of joyful hours you can spend here if you like this.
Even with some performance issues, superficial challenges and iffy pathway creation,
Planet Coaster is still one of my favorites of 2016.
I haven't had this particular gaming itch scratched this nicely
since Roller Coaster Tycoon 3,
and dude, that game had some issues.
But it still got my mind racing with creative possibilities in a 3D space.
Planet Coaster improves on the gameplay from that in several ways,
and still achieves at least the same level of inspiration and blissful freedom
that people flock to tycoon games for.
It's got visuals, atmosphere, style and charm out the butt,
and you can tell the folks behind this had learned much from their past experiences.
Planet Coaster is still not the ideal park simulation,
but it is getting close,
and has me once again optimistic for the future of the genre.
[joyful guitar music]
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And as always, thank you very much for watching.