This game was recommended to me by a friend who also loves real time simulation games. Next to the Simcity franchise, this is one of the most popular and well-received RTS games out there.

A little backstory... I started playing Sim Theme Park (1999) back in 2000. That was (and still is) a very fun simulation game. One of the best in my opinion. I feel the mixture of real-world accuracy and fun gameplay (even though very cartoony) was executed perfectly by the developers. Furthermore, the overall aesthetics and art style of the game are very appealing to me.

RT3, however, is a jumbled, overly-complicated mess in my opinion. The UI does not flow well, and the item menu layout makes it difficult to manage your park. Most importantly, there are just way too many options to play with! Everything (and person) in the park has a full-range of options to tweak... enough to make an OCD person go absolutely nuts, lol. I fully support real-world accuracy in these games, but I also understand that it's still a game, and I want to have fun playing it. And the developers definitely went full-tilt making RT3 as realistic as possible. Some people will no doubt love this, but I think that most people coming from Simcity or Sim Theme Park will find the game far too micro-manage-y.

The sandbox mode is fun, but since money is not involved, you quickly lose motivation playing it. What's the point if you can build anything you want, immediately? The campaign mode is not what I expected... I was thinking it was more along the lines of Sim Theme Park or Simcity where you start with a lump sum of money and an empty park, and you build your park from there, managing it along the way to keep a positive cash flow. Instead, the campaigns are somewhat preformed, giving you a basic park that you 'take-over' management of. Not very exciting in my opinion.

Overall, the game is not as fun as I had hoped for. If they allowed users to let the park run more autonomously (perhaps an 'auto-pilot' mode if you will) with the ability to tweak various items if needed, that would be better. Or, as an alternative, provide advice to the user on various aspects of the game (i.e. people find admission prices very cheap... people are not satisified with the quality of ice cream offered... etc). In it's current state, however, I don't want to go through my 5 hot dog stands and adjust the amount of mustard on my hot dogs.... and have to guess what the best selling price would be based on the insignificant amount of financial data the game provides real-time. The concept is great, but they just strayed too far in to the weeds without providing enough framework to allow the player to adequately adjust all of the options.

Those coming from Simcity- or Sim Theme Park-style games beware... you probably won't enjoy this one.
This game was recommended to me by a friend who also loves real time simulation games. Next to the Simcity franchise, this is one of the most popular and well-received RTS games out there. A little backstory... I started playing Sim Theme Park (1999) back in 2000. That was (and still is) a very fun simulation game. One of the best in my opinion. I feel the mixture of real-world accuracy and fun gameplay (even though very cartoony) was executed perfectly by the developers. Furthermore, the overall aesthetics and art style of the game are very appealing to me. RT3, however, is a jumbled, overly-complicated mess in my opinion. The UI does not flow well, and the item menu layout makes it difficult to manage your park. Most importantly, there are just way too many options to play with! Everything (and person) in the park has a full-range of options to tweak... enough to make an OCD person go absolutely nuts, lol. I fully support real-world accuracy in these games, but I also understand that it's still a game, and I want to have fun playing it. And the developers definitely went full-tilt making RT3 as realistic as possible. Some people will no doubt love this, but I think that most people coming from Simcity or Sim Theme Park will find the game far too micro-manage-y. The sandbox mode is fun, but since money is not involved, you quickly lose motivation playing it. What's the point if you can build anything you want, immediately? The campaign mode is not what I expected... I was thinking it was more along the lines of Sim Theme Park or Simcity where you start with a lump sum of money and an empty park, and you build your park from there, managing it along the way to keep a positive cash flow. Instead, the campaigns are somewhat preformed, giving you a basic park that you 'take-over' management of. Not very exciting in my opinion. Overall, the game is not as fun as I had hoped for. If they allowed users to let the park run more autonomously (perhaps an 'auto-pilot' mode if you will) with the ability to tweak various items if needed, that would be better. Or, as an alternative, provide advice to the user on various aspects of the game (i. e. people find admission prices very cheap... people are not satisified with the quality of ice cream offered... etc). In it's current state, however, I don't want to go through my 5 hot dog stands and adjust the amount of mustard on my hot dogs.... and have to guess what the best selling price would be based on the insignificant amount of financial data the game provides real-time. The concept is great, but they just strayed too far in to the weeds without providing enough framework to allow the player to adequately adjust all of the options. Those coming from Simcity- or Sim Theme Park-style games beware... you probably won't enjoy this one.