Planet Coaster 2 overview | PC Gamer

Again within the early noughties after I final visited Disney World, my favorite parks out of the entire archipelago of sights have been the water parks. The squealing chaos of the Storm Lagoon’s tsunami-generating wave pool. The terrifying, trunks-eroding descent of Blizzard Seashore’s Summit Plummet. Blissfully bobbing alongside the lazy rivers. Oh, the lazy rivers! Neglect House Mountain or the Tower of Terror, give me a giant rubber ring and let me bake my stomach within the superb Floridian solar.

Taking part in Planet Coaster 2 has reaffirmed my perception that swimming pools rule, rides drool. Water sights are the massive new addition to Frontier Developments’ theme park sim, including a brand new dimension to what was beforehand a complete however unadventurous coaster creation package. That is as properly, as a result of the sequel nonetheless coasts on its inventive prowess, with precise administration of its parks remaining a secondary concern.

Structurally, Planet Coaster 2 differs little from the primary. You may repair and fiddle with partially constructed parks in profession mode, or assemble your individual from scratch in variations upon the sandbox. These embody unrestrained creativity the place cash and house are not any object, and the extra moderated Problem mode the place not less than some administration expertise are required.

Whichever you select, the important thing distinction in your park constructing is the power to lubricate them with water-based sights. On the centre of those are swimming pools. Like all the pieces in Planet Coaster 2, you’ll be able to construct swimming pools nevertheless you please utilizing the sport’s extremely versatile toolset, creating all the pieces from kidney-dish paddling swimming pools, to aspiring lakes fringed by diving boards and wave machines.

Even when thought-about alone, swimming pools are surprisingly enjoyable additions to your park. That is largely as a result of Frontier has gone to city on animations for swimming pools, with shoals of tourists paddling round and treading water and splashing one another and bombing off the diving boards (naughty). There’s a freewheeling nature to the enjoyable that contrasts with the clockwork precision of extra mechanical rides, the place parkgoers spend most of their time being funnelled between totally different queues. It lends these simulated folks extra character past gawking, screaming, and blowing chunks.

Finally although, swimming pools primarily act as a basis for the actually enjoyable addition to Planet Coaster 2—flumes. These are varied varieties of waterslide, starting from simple downslides to zany spiralling affairs that require an interior tube to trip. Actually, I feel I’ll take pleasure in constructing these slippery sideshows greater than precise coasters. As together with your star rides, you’ll be able to twist and switch the tubing of flumes to your coronary heart’s content material, creating elaborate, seemingly physics-defying designs. However they’re extra compact and functionally less complicated than coasters, making them far much less finicky to construct from scratch. You don’t have to fret about propulsion or making certain the trip loops again completely on itself. Simply keep away from making it too nauseating and guarantee guests land in a pool reasonably than on jagged rocks, and also you’re golden. I additionally simply take pleasure in watching parkgoers hearth out of the tubes like a bullet to land in a giant splash, as a result of I’m a ginormous, bearded toddler.

This isn’t to say water sights are fully with out wrinkles. Swimming pools require water pumps and water filters to maintain them stuffed and clear, whilst you should additionally construct altering rooms close by so guests can change to their bathing gear. It’s additionally usually smart to recruit lifeguards to make sure customer security, as bathers can panic within the water and require help. However these components are all straightforward sufficient to handle, and on the entire, I discover swimming pools and flumes are probably the most straightforwardly fulfilling a part of Planet Coaster 2 relative to how troublesome they’re to arrange.

Inventive kind

Though swimming pools and flumes are probably the most thrilling new options, it’s price stressing that Frontier has not uncared for the coaster a part of Planet Coaster. Constructing choices run the gamut from basic picket coasters to looping steel-framed affairs; from inverted launch coasters to all new hybrid coasters that infuse water into their rides. And whereas there are many predefined blueprints to plonk down when you’re quick on time, constructing coasters from scratch continues to be the beating coronary heart of the sport. You may lose hours to tilting, tweaking, and twisting particular person sections of a coaster, taking part in with loops and rolls, testing it time and again till it supplies most thrills with out subjecting your guests to an astronaut’s price of g-force.

Certainly, I feel Planet Coaster 2 usually has among the best inventive toolsets on the market, letting you customise just about any side of your park, proper all the way down to sticking tiny items of surroundings onto the vehicles of your coasters. It isn’t at all times probably the most intuitive toolset, nevertheless. I’ll admit my coaster-building expertise have atrophied within the years since taking part in the primary sport, however I’m fairly certain I didn’t have as a lot hassle autocompleting coasters the final time round. I additionally want there was a simplified constructing system for slapping collectively surroundings for objects you employ rather a lot, like outlets for instance. You may set blueprints for something you construct, after all, however I nonetheless discover looking out by way of and sorting the elements for these a fiddly, time-consuming course of.

Regardless, as somebody who blasts by way of character creators as shortly as humanly attainable, I take pleasure in tinkering with Planet Coaster 2’s voluminous craft package. Having the mechanical crucial of surroundings enhancing your park ranking helps inspire me, admittedly, however I nonetheless recognize the ability and potential within the toolset. And it’s factor Planet Coaster 2 is so creatively fulfilling, as a result of as a administration sim, it’s a fairly passive affair.

Administration slim

That is, I reckon, partly by design. Frontier is aware of you’re going to be spending numerous time constructing coasters and faffing with surroundings, so it doesn’t need you combating fires continually. Nevertheless it’s additionally as a result of Planet Coaster 2’s simulation is extraordinarily friction averse. In contrast to the Two Level video games, the place poor administration ends in failing college students or useless sufferers, the worst that may occur in Planet Coaster 2 is that your guests barf or have a little bit of a thrash within the pool. I’m not saying Planet Coaster 2 ought to characteristic drowning kids or horrific trip disasters, extra that it not often throws any actual curveballs your manner. Too many rides breaking down? Rent extra mechanics. An excessive amount of litter? Place extra bins and rent extra janitors. Even monetary administration is extra about how shortly you earn cash reasonably than avoiding dropping it.

Maybe this is the reason, opposite to my expectations, I ended up drawn extra to the profession mode than the sandboxes this time round, as a result of it’s higher at laying down challenges that play to the collection’ strengths. Assuming the function of a brand new supervisor for theme park conglomerate Coaster Coast, the profession mode sees you tasked with constructing or overhauling a community of theme parks throughout the globe. By finishing the predetermined goals, you earn stars that accrue to unlock later profession chapters.

In and of themselves, the goals should not particularly authentic, at their most simple asking you to “rent three janitors” or “place 4 flat rides”. What makes them fascinating is the context wherein you should usually obtain them. One stage, for instance, sees you constructing a park on two lofty clifftops separated by a precipitous gorge. This makes an goal like “Construct a coaster with a minimal 45 metre drop” much more intellectually stimulating than when you have been simply constructing on a sandbox plain with zero restrictions. Likewise, coping with the restricted house of the clifftop makes “Construct a coaster not less than 600 metres in size” way more of a puzzle than it could be in sandbox mode.

This steadiness of construction and freeform play additionally applies to the marketing campaign extra broadly. The star system is fairly beneficiant when it comes to what different parks it enables you to unlock, so that you don’t must excellent one park to attempt the others. Hopping between parks tackling totally different challenges as you see match chimes with the tinkerer’s coronary heart of Planet Coaster 2, and I loved sampling its in depth buffet of concepts.

To be clear, this isn’t to say the opposite two modes aren’t price your time. Inventive mode is ideal for gamers who simply need to construct the largest, most elaborate park attainable with no constraints, whereas Problem Mode provides you total management whereas requiring you to maintain your park financially fluid. There are additionally just a few points with the profession mode. The narrative framing, which has quite a lot of characters advising you on park constructing, is nice sufficient, however is witless and anodyne in comparison with the satirical thrives of the Two Level video games. Furthermore, the pathing software, which at all times has the potential to be a fussy little beggar, is particularly uncooperative in profession mode the place there’s numerous bespoke geometry.

There are richer administration sims on the market than Planet Coaster 2, and if you need a sport about spinning plates and sticking quite a lot of of them again collectively, I’d sooner suggest both of the Two Level video games or, for the last word organisational problem, Factorio and its House Age growth. That mentioned, nowhere is the act of constructing a theme park higher represented than in Frontier’s collection, and the sequel’s added water sights unquestionably elevate it above the unique. Most significantly of all, it enables you to construct lazy rivers. Avert your eyes, of us, the stomach’s popping out.