Thrillville Preview

If you regard Thrillville merely as an amusement park simulation, then you are missing the greater part of this LucasArts release. The game is much more than that.

The premise of the game is that you take over the management of a roller coaster-based amusement park. That will mean a slight amount of managing the resources, as in building food resources, new rides, and the like, as well as maintaining staff and making certain that the park is clean. But even cleaning is a game.

Because there are roller coasters, people tend to eat, ride and relieve upset stomachs. That means there are vomit patches that need to be washed away. And there is litter to pick up. Armed with a hose and vacuum, you score points by helping the janitorial services clean the park.

But that’s not the only way to earn points. Almost every aspect of this game yields points; points which will ultimately unlock new parks. There are 15 different theme areas and you can customize virtually every aspect of them. Create a monster coaster and then, courtesy of the coaster cam, experience the thrill of riding on it.

If this is sounding like a ‘been there done that’ (as in a PC game that had similar features), then you are still barely scratching the surface of this game. Other, similar, games have had bubbles over the heads of patrons that gave you a sense of what they thought about your park. Thrillville takes it further than that. You talk to them, courtesy of a pop-up bar of conversational topics, and they respond with chat bubbles, as well as trigger the meter (that appears when you begin the conversation) either up and down. Fill the meter and you have a new best friend. You can even befriend a teen and then introduce them to another teen and watch for romantic sparks to fly.

Happy people mean a full park – which means money in your pocket.

Of course, what would an amusement park be without midway games? Thrillville has them – 22 games in total with 18 of them multiplayer in nature. You can even move several of them around. Challenging a patron to a race in the gravity cars, or even taking on another player who has hooked up a controller can be a blast. In fact, there were times when the games became the focal point of the adventure, and management duties were being serious shirked. (Not that the game seemed to mind.)

Thrillville is one of the more complete amusement park simulations in release. The game has a lot of depth and something that just about any player will find entertaining.

Graphically the game is very bright, lush and entertaining. The characters (you can customize your own) are quite serviceable and fit the mood of the game very nicely. The sounds are spot on as well.

The control schemes are easy to handle and the learning curve should be slight, even for players who have rarely played this type of game. Every mini game has the option of reviewing the control scheme prior to the start of the event, so players can readily brush up on what they need to do to compete.

Slated for release before Thanksgiving, Thrillville is looking to be a lot of fun against a background that is, by nature, entertaining. Props to LucasArts for this title – at this stage in its development, it is very enjoyable.