It seems that the little ‘Roaler Coaster Tycoon 2: Triple Thrill Pack” Christmas gift has been a heck of a lot more entertaining than I could ever have imagined. I seem to have pissed away the last couple of weeks just trying to figure out how to build bigger, better, faster and more exciting coasters. While I still would not consider myself an actual ‘Tycoon’, I would say that I have a foot pretty firmly into the door of being a “Roller Coaster Mutual Fund Investor”, which obviously doesn’t carry the same punch as ‘Tycoon’, and which is also a bit confusing.
Much like in any game you play, I began to get bored with just following through the scenarios and trying to achieve whatever goal was necessary. I had noticed as I was playing along that my initial attempts at free form coasters were all rating as ‘extreme’ with nausea ratings to match, all the while having a pretty low excitement level. After a bit of guess and check work, I was able to determine that you get really high ratings in those areas when you put curves after very large drops, especially so if the curves were not banked. I did correct that in the course of the scenarios, but, I kept it in mind for the purpose of experimentation outside of gameplay.
One of the single best features of the second RCT game is that it gives you a coaster builder section. This section allows you to build a coaster without the obstructions in the actual scenario, and, more importantly, without wasting valuable time in the actual scenario. They let you save the coaster, then load it directly into your scenario later, provided you have enough cash to do it. This was the most educational part of the game for me, at least as far as learning how to make a ride that will attract people, and thus help me to win the scenarios. However, I am a pretty sadistic little bastard. I began to wonder just exactly how extreme a coaster could get; how much g-force they would let you build into the coaster and still be able to test and open it. That has really been the most fun part of the game.
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To your right you will see the test data from my latest sadistic coaster. I am kind of proud of the 22.51 intensity rating, since the ratings seem to be loosely based on a 1-10 scale with anything over ten being extreme, or extreme with an adjective. The nausea rating doesn’t matter to me all that much, that is the whole point of the ride, isn’t it? If you want to go on a coaster and not feel sick, I am pretty sure they have those baby coasters out there somewhere. It is the G-Force ratings on this one that I am pretty proud of. The lateral G’s are because it is a launced coaster (meaning it is shot out of the gate as opposed to being pulled), and at damn near 5 G’s I am pretty sure that this alone would take your breath away. The negative vertical G’s is there only because they wouldn’t let me launch the thing downhill, meaning I had to make a hump which led into the huge drop. The positive 9.95G is the one that I am most proud of though, I mean, damn!
I can’t seem to find any conclusive proof regarding the subject, but I have heard that without the aid of a special suit pilots will start to black out at around 6G’s. Whether or not that is true doesn’t really matter though. Just imagine going a carnival ride like the “Gravitron”, which only does 3G’s, and multiply that by 3. I couldn’t move my appendages forward while riding on the gravitron, and it almost felt like the skin on my face was starting to slip off. If the forces were three times that amount, I likely would have been, at the very least, a bit sick. Man that is a lot of G-force.
The really sad part is that I may never know just how the ride would affect little pixelated sprites, as I have put that coaster into a couple of different scenarios and have yet to have a single passenger. Isn’t there some little, pixelated sprite out there that is being egged on enough by his little, pixelated friends that he has to ride it? If there is I have yet to find him.
I really should try to come up with something more interesting to put here, but the roller coaster game is calling me again. It is really a damn shame how easily I can get addicted to these mindless little games.
Hopefully I will have actual content here next post. Hopefully.