It has been a long time since Bullfrog?s original Theme Park graced our computers with its presence. Being hailed by many as one of the best games ever, Theme Park was a hugely successful venture for Bullfrog at the time, and in keeping with their policy of creating sequels to their old smash hits, it was only a matter of time before we?d see this release. In the US, this title is dubbed Sim Theme Park, but I prefer the name Theme Park Worlds as it sounds better, and Theme Park is nothing at all like you would expect from the ?SIM? franchise.

For all the people new to the Theme Park series (shame on you), you are charged with building a successful theme park and raking in the profits. This involves researching new rides and keeping your guests and staff happy. The original was presented with mainly 2D graphics, but in this sequel we have a, *gasp*, full 3D environment.

The basic premise of the game has also changed slightly. There are now four different themes to choose from: Prehistoric, Halloween, Wonderland, SpaceZone. Each of these themes has completely new models for all the rides, but essentially the rides are all exactly the same; They all have the same amount of water riders, roller coasters, shops, etc.

They do make a difference though. I personally prefer the Prehistoric theme due to the nice music, the best intro (Theme Park Worlds has several different intro?s, depending on what park you?re up to), and most of the rides are quite original and have nice colour schemes. The new ?full simulation? mode gives you access to Halloween and Prehistoric themes at the start (the two best in my opinion) and when more keys are collected, you can gain access to Wonderland, and finally Spacezone. To collect these keys you must acquire "golden tickets?. These are acquired by pleasing as many visitors as possible, accumulating a certain amount of money, researching as many things as possible, etc. Three golden tickets give you another key. Also you can buy ?mystery rides? with your golden tickets, but usually these are nothing special.

These were the most significant differences between this title and the original, for the rest there is nothing really special that is changed. You still build rides as normal, have a tendency to go bankrupt quickly, but now you are also partner to an excruciatingly irritating little advisor who resembles a bomb. Pity there's no way to light its fuse because it really starts to get on your nerves how the stupid thing keeps repeating the same thing over and over and over and over again. ?Your janitors aren?t covering all of the park effectively? it must somehow realize after it has said that non-stop for that last 2 hours that I really couldn?t care less what it thinks of my janitors. Some changes which, in my opinion, are for the worse, is the fact that its been rather simplified. At the start, with all the buttons available it might seem like there will be plenty of statistics to rifle through, but in truth it has been cut down. The ?managing stock? aspect is gone, which although sometimes annoying was still essential, and for some reason there is no effective way to see your spending or predicted profit at all; there are plenty of graphs on your money, but none of them are all that useful. One aspect I?m glad they removed is the stock market section, which was seriously flawed, and if handled well could earn you about $80,000 after a few years (that?s a lot). Also there are no more wage negotiations, which I think is really sad as they were done really well in the original. Your workers always seem to be perfectly happy and there is never a need for a single guard, as there are no more gangs who invade your park.

The park building is all unchanged, except for some slight adjustments so that people no longer get fooled into paying $1000 to play a game, with a 100% chance of winning a prize worth $500. The method of adding tons of salt to your fries (makes them thirsty), lots of ice in your drinks (cheaper) and lots of sugar in the ice cream (hyperactive) still work, but you don?t really need to bother as people seem to drink so incredibly much anyway, and drink shops should be built a few squares apart or your people seem to die of thirst. Building roller coasters is really simple, except that they seem to display some horrible clipping effects, and on most of my roller coasters, no normal human would be able to survive the excruciating G-Forces acting upon the occupants, who should also have their necks snapped several times. Sideshows don?t seem to earn much and do a great job in disappointing all the people who lose in them, so its best to built a minimum of them. There is also an added feature of being able to walk around in your park and ride your creations. Though this is not really as much fun as it sounds, it is quite cool for a little while on your roller coasters.

As much as ?multiplayer? would seem impossible for this genre (which it is), Bullfrog have still opted to have an online option where you can publish your parks online, and chat with other people and view their parks. I have a bad feeling that very soon it will be flooded with millions of parks, none of which will be any good at all.

Well its an overall improvement of course (it takes a brilliant mind to screw up the sequel to one of the most popular games ever), a bit disappointed at some of the aspects taken out, and nothing new is added (probably because the innovative mind of Peter Molyneux left) but its nice how there are four different themes to choose from, and how there is the general framework of a single player experience with the golden tickets. It?s still a lot of fun to play, and any fan of the original would enjoy this sequel. The only warning would have to be that the user must have quite a bit of power at their disposal since this thing isn?t easy on the average computer, especially if you don?t have a 3D card; It will run, but forget about actually playing it. Even on my trusty 450Mhz, TNT with 96Mb RAM I had to run in 640x480 to stop the insane chugging that takes place any higher setting.