Zoo Tycoon

I'm a big fan of Sim Theme Park, but lost the disk some time ago so I was looking for a game to replace it. My husband bought me a few $10 games to keep me out of his hair while he writes his book and Zoo Tycoon was one of them. It is a pretty good replacement for Sim Theme Park, but only because of the graphics and controls. The premise of the game is, well, only kind of different. You still need to get people into your park, you have to take care of their needs (restrooms, food, drinks, gift shops, etc) and you still have to do the research in order to upgrade your exhibits. The big difference is that you're working with animals. They also have needs a lot like the people who come to your park (eat, drink, shelter, zoo keepers, etc) that are much more difficult to deal with than the human needs. The zoo keepers don't always do what you want them to, the maintenance workers are more likely to clean than to actually fix the exhibit walls, so animals can escape. Also, true to life, the animals have babies and in the end most die of old age. You have to make sure that their enclosure is big enough and if too many babies are had, the exhibit gets crowded and the animals unhappy. The best part about the version I have is that it came with the Dino Digs and Marine Mania expansions so I get to play with such animals as Great White Sharks, Beluga Whales, Wooly Mammoths and even Loch Ness Monsters, though the escaping with the Dino Digs animals gets much worse than with the regular animals. The game is tons of fun, totally worth the money and making me want to pick up Zoo Tycoon 2 and its expansion packs.