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ZOO TYCOON ZOOKEEPER'S COLLECTION WILL NOT WORK

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: October 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Parents. Please save yourself the aggrivation and hours of time on the phone with Microsoft if you are trying to put this game on an HP Pavillion. My new HP Pavillion has 2 gig memory and all the bells and whistles that should play circles around this game but it crashes between 4 - 20 minutes every time my daughter tries to play it. It works wonderfully on my Dell, Windows XP machine, although she can't play it on its highest settings. After many hours of speaking to a nice man in India, I have opted to return the computer. That's how much my daughter likes the game.... just be aware it won't work on all computers.

OK for a while

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 11
Date: June 12, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I just love the genre of this game, but I don't love this game. The game is nice to view, and the zoo customization is really fun. However, the logic of the customers really spoils the game.

First, putting dinosaurs in your zoo does not attract as much customers (and their donations) as one would think. Therefore, the expensive dinosaur with its high maintenance costs will cause your zoo to go bankrupt.

For the marina part of this game, the customers only care about viewing the shows. You'll see crowds (hundreds for me) of customers walking from show to show passing by most everything else in between. Additionally, the timing of the shows is terrible. The crowds will keep walking towards one even though its over. In addition to that, its funny and frustrated to me when I see loads of people walking back and forth between shows, missing them all. These crowds of people significantly affect the game's performance, slowing it down big time.

The only aspect of this game that I do enjoy is the stuff not including the expansions (the original zoo). Customers just love looking at and donating money to the regular zoo animals, especially the endangered ones. Well, one would think that Microsoft is popular for making updates, but not for this product.

A failure of a zoo tycoon

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 12
Date: January 03, 2007
Author: Amazon User

How can this game possibly be fun? There are far more cons than pros. Let's start with the only 2 pros:

-Informative about animals and educational

-Many objects and animals to choose from to add to your zoo, inside the exhibits and out

Now, let's take a look at these cons:

-Everytime you look, an animal has a problem. Just because of one problem, they'll go all 'depressed'. How pathetic.

-Everything you do is wrong. 'Your zoo has no money.' 'Dromedary camel is not happy.' 'Guests do not seem to like your zoo.' I tried and tried again, but you'd have to be a proffesional at age 15 or above to actually have fun. This should be rated T for teen, just because it's so hard.

-Game provides few tips to help you. The next time someone tells you, "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what to give to an animal, and what not to!" You truthfully can reply, "Yes it does!"

-Guests come right when the zoo opens, so you have to mad-dash around the zoo to create exhibits. What does this game like to do, rush you instead of letting you have fun?

-EVERY animal must be happy, or ALL the guests will be angry.

-The guests aren't as interested in dinosaurs as you'd think they would be. Come on, a dinosaur. Do you see that everyday? Are the guests EVER satisfied?

Nope. So don't buy this, save your money, time, and patience, because you'll forever lose it with this game. It's just like going to school: It's just educational, and there is no fun involved, so you'll probably forget all the things you've learned because you had no fun in learning it.

Not very interesting

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 7
Date: December 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

It was quite confusing to me, and all the people kept leaving the zoo and becoming sad. And then you had to take care of the animals and they were always sad. I think the funnest part of this game was building the zoo. After that it was boring and pretty downright stupid. But, hey, if you don't agree with me, that's fine, because I was pretty clueless. I just think you should get a little more information before choosing to buy this. Trust me, it won't be worth your time.

fun

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 9
Date: January 15, 2006
Author: Amazon User

great game

Rollercoaster Tycoon Goes to the Zoo

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 11 / 14
Date: December 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Every company loves to make a tycoon game, especially after the financial success of Rollercoaster Tycoon, and to Zoo Tycoon's credit, it is probably the best tycoon series since the rollercoaster titles and can be a fun game to spend time with. Unfortunately, most mainstream games such as this one have limited content in the original game and require you to purchase subsequent expansions to fully enjoy the game. Thus, the first Zoo Tycoon probably didn't have enough animals, scenery and other goodies to make it a worthwhile purchase. However, now that the original game and both expansions can be had for the same price as the first game, it's a good buy. Casual gamers will probably have a lot of fun with this title, especially consumers that want a family game. Hardcore gamers that have seen it all will probably be entertained for a day or two and then look elsewhere. Anyone that enjoys games that allow them to create and build will get a kick out of Zoo Tycoon. I especially enjoyed the free form option that allows a gamer to build a zoo from scratch instead of sticking with scenarios that have preset goals. It's a decent game, nothing spectacular, but creative enough to keep you playing for a few days.

An OK Tycoon Game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 11 / 12
Date: December 28, 2004
Author: Amazon User

My brother got this game a year or so ago and I like to play it. In the game you have the option to play a freeform game, which is a game you don't have any objectives or anything, and just build a zoo from scratch, and having the option of spending up to $500,000 (of course you can cheat and use the unlimited money cheat...=P press 'shift' and '4'). This is one of the advantages of this game. You can also do the tutorial and scenario games, which as in many of the other tycoon games, you need to complete certain objectives in a certain amount of time. (For example one of these objectives might be "In 18 months, achieve an average exhibit suitability rating of 85, an average guest happiness of 80, and process at least 1 baby White Bengal Tigers, Okapis, and Snow Leopards.")

Playing the freeform games are fun, because you can set your own options. Like in the other tycoon games, you can do research, edit terrain, build paths, buy restaurants and stands/stalls, build attractions, adopt animals, and more. The paths tool is also more efficient; you can drag your mouse and construct a 30-foot path instead of the standard 5-feet-at-a-time that you have to do on Roller Coaster Tycoon. You also have a very wide of animals to choose from; such as savannah, rainforest, coniferous, deciduous, grassland, ocean, fresh-watered, and highland animals. There are even unicorns.

One of the biggest disadvantages of this game is that you have really stupid guests (as another viewer mentioned), and that the game itself is hardly challenging (at least until you work on the 'advanced' and 'very advanced' scenarios). The guests in this game are really mindless and hard to work with, especially at the advanced and very advanced scenarios. It's a pain in the royal behind really, because they will walk of paths and wander so deep in your huge park that you can't find them, and they will starve and be unhappy and bring your guest happiness rating down, and you need ratings of at least 93/100 to win.

The graphics in this game are really pretty. There's the nice Thompson's Gazettes, that spring around happily in the exhibits, and the bears that roar and run around, and when you're constructing the exhibits the terrain blends together quite nicely.

But I would recommend this for an animal lover. You learn quite a bit about animals' habitats. But me? Pick up any of the Roller Coaster Tycoon packs instead. You might find them to be a bit more fun.

Cashing in on Tycoon Series

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 12
Date: September 04, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is a great game for people new to the Tycoon series, Animal Lovers, and children. However, be wary if you are an advanced Tycoon player or Computer Gamer.

The game itself is rather fun. The user interface is nicely done, and it's relatively easy to build exhibits. There are plenty of animals to choose from. The most fun have to be the marine animals. I didn't bother with the dinosaurs, besides hatching a T-Rex and throwing animals into the pen with it to see what would happen, as well as letting it run loose in the Elephant exhibit, escape, and devour scared guests. Unfortunatly, that was only a brief 3 minutes.

I like the game, and it was worth the modest purchase price. However, the game lacks many things for more advanced players.

The first being the simplicity of the game. You can easily setup a box pattern of exhibits with a double walkway, and exhibits on both sides. You can throw some themed acessories and plants by the walkway, a restroom or two, a food and drink stand, and your guests will be happy forever. There is no need for Primate/Bird houses, Arcades, Put-Put Golf, or even a gift shop. As long as your animals are happy, your guests will think your park is great, and you will make money.

Guests really have no clue what they are doing. While they have a favorite animal, they don't dislike any animal, or any specific area the animal comes from. That means you could create all Savannah animals in your Zoo and guests won't care. In fact, that's generally what I did. All Savannah style animals, with maybe a few others here and there, and then I'd move on to Marine Areas. I always planned on adding specific areas for other animals, but frankly, there was never a need, and I got bored and started a new Zoo.

Which leads too the next point....wow, alot of animals. It's actually a good thing, but creating a huge Zoo with every animal would take a month or two, and I'm guessing it would be a micro-managing nightmare, as you'll have to monitor each exhibit when it starts becoming empty due to death, or too crowded from births. It would be great though, if the game could automate such tasks, allowing for a maximum and minimum number of animals per exhibit.

The Research is actually too quick, and often, animals just appear in one lump group. If you bump your research up, you'll be done with research in a few hours of gameplay, which isn't nearly enough time to actully USE all those animals it just gave you.

The Terrain editor is halfway useless. While you can raise and lower land, There's no way to lower the corners of the land besides the huge valley tool, so you can't get a smooth path down, for something like a double square path below ground to see an exhibit like a shark tank. You can still do it, but you have to use the valley tool to create a HUGE valley, and then raise up the remaining territory, which is just too much work to be worth it. You also can't build over paths, or any obstacle. If it was there, it would allow for alot more variety in Zoo Design.

While the game is fun, it's certainly no challenge to create a working, profitable park. Just keep in mind that when it starts becoming profitable, go watch TV for 30 minutes and come back, you'll have gained enough money to build more exhibits. If the Guest AI was halfway decent, it would be much more worthwhile to create a realistic Zoo. As it is, the game has horrible play value, and for any Tycoon Series player, you'll just wish your guests were as smart as the ones in Roller Coaster Tycoon, or atleast the ability to see how much money they are carrying.

Recommended, but beware of limitations.

Surprised he lost interest so quickly!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: October 26, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I bought this for my son's 7th birthday and he's already lost interest in it. But I think it's a very cool game that he will pick up later, he's possibly a little young for it? The graphics on it are good and it has lots of room to grow. So, I'd still recommend it.

Build zoo of your dreams, repeat... repeat... repeat...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: November 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Zoo Tycoon Complete Collection lets you build any kind of zoo possible. You can put anything from dolphins to big foot in your zoo. However, you will often find yourself unable to get your zoo any bigger or better forcing you to just sit there and watch it run itself. At this point, I usually block off the exit and let all the animals out of their exhibits. Your guests rarely ever go to the back of the zoo because they get tired and turn around. The back is also where you usually have all of the best animals because you can only get them when your zoo gets very successful, after you've filled up the front of the zoo. Making and maintaining exhibits is also frustrating. The animals will not be happy unless they have the perfect amount of everything in their exhibit. The big dinosaurs are also a huge pain. They run around in their exhibit until they crush a shrub. Then they get angry about how messy the exhiibit is because of the smashed shrub and they try to break out of their exhibit. You have to go clean up the shrub and replace only to have it crushed again. This is a great game, but it can be frustrating and doesn't have as much replay value as I would have liked.

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