Anyone played Roller Coaster Tycoon?

[Medessec]

I noticed in a topic that some of you were strong fans of the awesom-est sleeper hit ever made in the gaming world(IMO), Roller Coaster Tycoon. Well, I feel strongly enough about it to make a topic, so here it is.

I played for hours on end every day when I was very little... I had an old Windows 98 desktop to do the job too. I eventually got it on the Thinkpad 760 I had at the time, which was great, because I could take my RCTing on the go with me.

Of course, it's always good fun to take my disc, pop it in a newer Thinkpad(or one of my vintages that I have on hand) and play it today. I never lose my edge on playing either, it's always fun.

I made a little video showing one of my bigger parks, and a time-lapse of me making a coaster completely from scratch. I made this video about 2 hours ago from posting this topic... you can't screen capture RCT2 with software if you remember, because RCT/RCT2 was programmed in assembly. So what I did is I played RCT2 on my Z61p, and then captured the video onto my Clevo D900F's S-video capture card. Quite a convoluted way of getting video of RCT2, and doesn't result in the best quality. But here it is:

http://stuff.medessec.com/RCT

The video is a flat, no-sound low-res SWF file, so it should be easier on your computer or playable on an older computer. I'd like people to try loading the page in their older Thinkpads and see if they can still play the video.

I also put the coaster on the address for download.
http://stuff.medessec.com/RCT/UberBlue.TD6

[Temetka]

I used to play RCT back in the day. It was a very fun game.

You video played just fine on my D630, which is the lowest specced computer I own. Seems like the low res .SWF file should play fine on a P233 or PII. I used to play older video's like that back in the day on my PII.

[thePCxp]

Your video also played fine on my T60, Medessec.

I've never played RCT but I remember it from when I was younger. I've always been intrigued by it.

[A31]

Yes I've played all 3! I played RCT3 the most - awesome game! I keep playing it for hours. and then leaving it for months (or possibly years), but when I do play it, I play it an awful lot.

I've run RCT3 on many different configurations. It lagged on most of them, but with my 5870 and i5 2500K, I can run it at 1080p (just modify the options.txt file to get that res) and it runs flawlessly - even at night time when it usually lagged.

I played RCT3 a lot back in April (after several years of not playing it all) and I built an awesome park. I've still got the game installed and presumably this park is still saved, but here are some screenshots I took in April.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/47067363e65c ... 1_1280.jpg

http://24.media.tumblr.com/386630edecd4 ... 2_1280.jpg

http://24.media.tumblr.com/4c811b8d1d15 ... 3_1280.jpg

http://24.media.tumblr.com/0cda23724763 ... 4_1280.jpg

http://25.media.tumblr.com/e9ddcb54145f ... 5_1280.jpg

http://25.media.tumblr.com/942b4c9b811d ... 6_1280.jpg

http://24.media.tumblr.com/5973d536b5a8 ... 7_1280.jpg

http://24.media.tumblr.com/fa458a3289f2 ... 8_1280.jpg

http://24.media.tumblr.com/dcfbf4d43e17 ... 9_1280.jpg

http://25.media.tumblr.com/df128cdaf216 ... 0_1280.jpg

Took me DAYS of solid RCT3'ing to build that park. I got 4,500 guests into that park in the end - my record!

You can see some screenshots of this park taken in August (when I last played the game) underneath all of the Just Cause 2 screenshots: http://www.computerforum.com/21659-offi ... ost1887635

So yeah - great game. Love RCT3, even 6 years on from when I first got it.

[thePCxp]

That's a very nice park you built, A31! I love the pics!

[A31]

That's a very nice park you built, A31! I love the pics!

Haha, cheers.

Gotta love RCT3's 'realism'. My friend built a roller coaster which pulled about 50G once and people were going on it. And you can make walls and stuff float in mid air. Awesome!

The most irritating thing is that there's no undo button and it's so easy to get annoyed when you've built an awesome coaster, but nobody goes on it because the 'intensity rating is too high'. Oh, and your rides keep breaking down every 5 minutes and the people complain when they have to wait 3 minutes for a ride. Clearly they've never been to a REAL theme park where you sometimes have to wait hours!

But it's still an awesome game!

[Medessec]

Absolutely staggeringly spectacular park, A31.

I actually am not the biggest fan of RCT3... I did buy it first thing when it came out-but none of my computers could run it properly, and I hated the UI with all my insides. There's a lot of plain stupidity in it... such as the elevated footpathing, which is an illogical mess compared to RCT2, and when building a coaster, the banking system doesn't "unbank" a turn for you like in RCT2, so I almost always accidentally leave angled hills. There's also the programming faults with the people, such as the issues you mentioned with the breakdowns versus time, etc.

However- RCT3's CoasterCam almost completely redeems it... the peeps system is also pretty cool, and of course, the 3D environment and graphics, allowing you to create absolutely spectacular parks like in your pictures. It could have been so much better... but it is still a worthy successor to two great games. RCT2 is more nostalgic, and runs on just about anything, so I find myself playing that Roller Coaster Tycoon much more often. I still have my RCT1 disc, and my RCT3 disc somewhere. I have all RCT and RCT2 expansion packs, but I didn't buy any of the RCT3 expansions.

Oh! I also absolutely love how they made it so RCT2 tracks can be imported to RCT3. You could theoretically download the coaster I made for this topic, and ride it yourself in RCT3.

[A31]

RCT3 is way more fun with the expansion packs. You can do so much more with it.