Planet Coaster 2’s versatile creation instruments are as compulsive as ever, however the enjoyable butts up in opposition to an exhausting UI, uninspired administration gameplay, and conspicuous content material gaps that really feel like cynical areas for DLC.
I bloody love a theme park: the sights, the smells, the gleeful screams, the sense of utter transportation. However most of all, I really like the breathless conflict of science and artwork behind these totally encompassing illusions. I’m the type of theme park nerd who nonetheless will get genuinely giddy once they see know-how and creativity crash collectively like this, and who’s been daydreaming their good rides and coasters into existence since a run-in with Disney’s Haunted Mansion on the age of three turned a little bit of an obsession. For folks like me, the unique Planet Coaster was a dream. For all its flaws, it was a brilliantly carried out, fantastically offered suite of inventive instruments able to turning theme park flights of fancy into digital actuality, and its sequel guarantees the identical, however extra.
Like its predecessor, Planet Coaster 2 is an instantaneous head turner; an excellent fusion of artwork, animation, sound, and music that brings these inventive whims to splendidly convincing life – a world of whirling metallic, blinking lights, and the delighted screams of company, to be skilled on excessive or at floor stage. Strip away the presentational pizzazz, after all, and Planet Coaster 2 stays indebted to Chris Sawyer’s seminal RollerCoaster Tycoon, barely straying from the template established over 1 / 4 of a century in the past. It is a recreation constructed across the intricacies of park administration; of hiring workers, developing rides, and offering key facilities – all to please company and make sufficient revenue that the operational loop can proceed indefinitely. However as soon as once more, Planet Coaster 2’s actual strengths lie within the depth, breadth, and suppleness of its design and customisation instruments.
It is a sequel of light evolution relatively than sweeping reinvention, which is not to say its refinements aren’t instantly obvious – Frontier has clearly listened to suggestions from Planet Coaster 1, even when it appears like its most notable enhancements are particularly catered towards the YouTube content material creator contingent with days to spend fashioning their marvels of intricate design. Its new lighting engine, for example, is not simply fairly, it is sensible; enclosed areas are literally darkish, that means correct darkish rides are lastly attainable with out clunky workarounds.
Then there’s the optimisation. Not like its notoriously spluttery predecessor, Planet Coaster 2 is much extra able to maintaining with gamers’ inventive whims with out instantly turning right into a slideshow. Monitor journey building usually feels much less fiddly; flat rides can now be stripped again and totally themed with décor items – invaluable for these wanting a extra cohesive aesthetic movement throughout their parks – whereas seemingly minor additions akin to object-scaling and surroundings brushes are main recreation changers. Elsewhere, swimming pools and flumes have been launched, satisfying the limitless clamour for water parks among the many group.
Planet Coaster 2’s numerous play modes are extra clearly outlined now, too. There is a marketing campaign mode, for example, that goes to some entertainingly bizarre locations because it cheerfully turns the basics of park constructing into objective-based challenges. That stated, its tendency to prioritise dad-tier jokes over useful explanations – and the frequency with which any makes an attempt at creativity butt up in opposition to arbitrary limitations – make it a little bit of a drag. There’s additionally a Franchise mode, enabling gamers to work collectively, clan-like, in a globe-spanning grasp to high the leaderboards by satisfying weekly challenges, and there is assist for asynchronous co-operative constructing, too. Lastly, for these merely eager to maximise their inventive freedom, there is a extremely customisable sandbox mode, enabling gamers to shift the steadiness between park administration and design as they are saying match.
What Planet Coaster 2 lacks, although, is any significant strategic evolution or sophistication. It jettisons a few of its predecessor’s mechanical breadth too, with the likes of eating places, accommodations, and safety all now inexplicably eliminated. The unique Planet Coaster was, after all, a desperately uneven affair, its highly effective creation instruments massively overshadowing an anaemic administration core, and it is disappointing – if maybe not particularly shocking – to see these weaknesses carry over to the sequel. It’d function a guidelines of latest administration choices – from water filtration to energy distribution – however the implementation is uniformly superficial. Even water parks, Planet Coaster 2’s flagship new function, simply form of exist – a pair extra holes to dig, workers to make use of, and rides to construct – with little in the way in which of prolonged integration.
For all its constructing refinements, Planet Coaster 2 feels prefer it marginalises its administration aspect even additional, its two halves co-existing, often intertwining, however by no means in notably attention-grabbing or convincing methods. It is a backward step in comparison with Frontier’s great Planet Zoo, which struck a compelling steadiness between park administration and beautification. And it is particularly weak compared to Texel Raptor’s Parkitect, created with a fraction of Frontier’s assets, which regardless of ostensibly being a retro throwback, felt like a real evolution of the basic theme park sim system. Parkitect’s canny logistical layer of products distribution, significant distinctions between ‘backstage’ and ‘entrance of home’, to not point out its impactful climate system, all introduced a real sense of strategic cohesion between its two halves. By comparability, the handful of components that Planet Coaster 2 does borrow from Parkitect – climate and surroundings scoring – really feel dramatically underdeveloped and awkwardly siloed.
Much more so than the unique, Planet Coaster 2 appears like a recreation for the builders and tinkerers, the look-what-I-made content material creators, and that is completely fantastic, even when it does really feel like a missed alternative. Frontier’s sequel has the identical unquestionable type of hypnotic attract as its predecessor in terms of constructing and design – arguably much more so, given its multitude of toolkit refinements – hours vanishing in a contented haze of meticulous rock placement, or in getting the banking sweep of your brand-new coaster simply so. The difficulty is, for all it will get proper, Planet Coaster 2 typically feels surprisingly retrograde – cumbersome, counterintuitive, or simply plain contradictory – with an infuriating knack of getting in its personal means.
Merely navigating menus is usually an train in fiddly frustration, with Frontier’s try and design an interface that works for each keyboard and mouse and controllers by no means fairly working for anybody. Menus are unintuitively organised, key data is usually lacking or obscured by poor or inconsistent presentation, superior settings continuously stay unexplained… On it goes in an identical slapdash trend. Why, for example, does the Workshop not have a filter for flat rides, of all issues? Individually, these really feel like surmountable quirks, however all collectively they’re simply draining.
It does not assist both that suggestions is usually so poor, even contradictory, that it is laborious to inform what’s a failure in your half or a failure of the sport. “Workers are attempting to entry a workers constructing which is at full capability”, I’m knowledgeable at one level, rapidly adopted by the message, “There is no such thing as a workers constructing”. Encouragingly, Frontier has already began to handle a few of Planet Coaster 2’s extra egregious points, with extra substantial tweaks coming in December, nevertheless it’s nonetheless laborious to shake the sense of backward slides elsewhere.
Positive, the journey choice is genuinely nice, with some great titillating thrives – tilting coaster platforms, backward flumes, oh my! However as simple and satisfying as it’s to construct the ‘park’ little bit of your theme park, Planet Coaster 2 appears to flounder on theme. Gone are the visually distinct archetype themes seen within the authentic recreation – pirate, sci-fi, spooky, and western. As a substitute, changed by far much less distinct choices: aquatic, mythology, Viking, tropical resort, and cheerily company. It’s a mixture that leads to a form of bland sludge of vaguely vacation-themed visuals – half vacation resort, half generic amusement park – that do not precisely sizzle with inventive potential. Moreover, Planet Coaster 2’s constructing blocks depart loads to be desired, pre-built decorations, animatronics, and in-house surroundings blueprints all in decidedly brief provide.
After just a few hours within the authentic Planet Coaster, I’d constructed a surprisingly elaborate Pirates of the Caribbean knock-off, full with sword waving buccaneers, burning ships, and cannon balls splashing within the water; by comparability, essentially the most unique nook of my park in Planet Coaster 2 is a tragic cave with a singing eel. Sure, it is completely attainable to improvise one thing extra fantastical utilizing geometric shapes and fiddly little props, however not everybody will wish to go so deep into the instruments. In fact, Planet Coaster 2’s new in-game Workshop means design-minded gamers can add and share their creations with anybody hoping for a extra informal play expertise – nevertheless it all feels just a little distasteful, as if Frontier’s offloading key foundational work onto the group. And Planet Coaster 2’s extra conspicuous gaps really feel much more cynical once they’re accompanied by £18 launch day DLC.
At its finest, Planet Coaster 2 captures a lot of the magic of its predecessor, the place immaculate presentation and highly effective instruments manifest a recreation of limitless inventive potential. However its undoubted pleasures are haunted by interruptions and frustrations, missed alternatives, and simply far too many conspicuous holes the place it appears like one thing very important must be. There’s an opportunity issues will enhance as Planet Coaster 2 evolves, however proper now, for all its core refinements, it typically feels lesser than its predecessor in too some ways.
A duplicate of Planet Coaster 2 was supplied for assessment by Frontier Developments.
