User Reviews (1 - 11 of 16)

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Buyer Beware

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 18 / 20
Date: April 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I would like to echo the sentiments of the other reviews, in that the average consumer can easily be misled into thinking that they have the proper system requirements in order to run this program. My son bought this for $20 at our school book fair, and has never been able to play it, due to the unusual graphics requirements. To purchase a compatible graphics card is basically ridiculous, as they seem to cost far more than the game itself. Now we're stuck with a brand new game that is essentially worthless!

Will crash if you have a chipset that's not supported.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 11 / 14
Date: February 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I gave it 4 stars for fun because my daughter likes it when she can play it long enough before it crashes. I gave it one star for the overall rating because the box doesn't tell you that many popular chipsets are not supported (including Intel, which is what I have)--see below for the list of unsupported chipsets. All the box says for minimum video requirements is: "NVIDIA GeForce2, ATI Radeon, or 3D cards of the same grade." I just bought a brand new eMachines T5026 with an Intel Pentium 4 processor, and I thought my Intel chipset would be of a high enough grade to play the game.

This looks like it would be a fun game, except it kept crashing on my computer, saying something like ZE.exe must close. It would crash after as little as three minutes or as long as 45 minutes. I searched all over for the answer, and finally found that many popular chipsets are not supported [...]. It should really say that on the box.

The chipsets not supported are: all ATI cards before the Radeon 7200, all nVidia cards before the GeForce, 3DFx Voodoo (and Voodoo 2, 3, 4, and 5), all Intel chipsets, all Kyro or Power VR, all Matrox, all S3, all SiS, and all Trident. It also says that inactive video cards can also cause conflicts and should be uninstalled.

It is really frustrating to buy a game and then find it doesn't work with my brand new computer with a well-known chipset (Intel).

warning do not buy

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: October 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Bought this game 2 months ago. when I installed it, my computer crashed. Email game support and they sent me an email that they were aware of the problem and would get back to me. They never got back to me and will not return my emails. The game will not uninstall off of my computer and my computer keeps crashing all the time now. Do not take the chance that it will ruin your computer to!!!!!!

This game stinks

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 9
Date: October 30, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I guess I shouldn't say it stinks...it has never actually ran long enough to know. It won't run on my computer at all, keeps telling me there is an error with ze.exe. Loaded onto my husbands computer and it did run for about 2 minutes, then did the same thing as on mine. Pretty sucky birthday present for my 8 yr old.

Poor Quality Zoo Software

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: October 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This software will not work on my Hewlett Packard. The screen flashes then blanks out. What a rip-off.

Avoid THIS GAME !!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: June 18, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Again as the other consumers have said... DO NOT BUY this game. It will not play on about 95% of the computers that have been manufactured. Save your money. Buy ZOO TYCOON ... a good game!

No comparison to Roller Coaster/Zoo tycoon games

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 13 / 16
Date: August 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

If you have played the Roller Coaster and Zoo typcoon games I feel you will be quite disappointed with Zoo Empire by Enlight. Not only is it totally different but you better study your instruction booklet before playing and be prepared to refer to it constantly.
I found it frustrating trying to manuver through the toolbar which is far from simple just to get to the sections sections needed to make the game run smoothly.. The layout is (for lack of a better word) strange!!

Well, maybe the youngsters will have an easier time of it, but I doubt it. Its simply a frustration to play..

Personally disappointed.

Frustrating...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: August 09, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Though I would never compare this game to RollerCoaster Tycoon, because that is far and away the best game of this type out there, Zoo Empire certainly doesn't stand on its own. The learning curve is HUGE! I had to pick up the manual constantly even though I patiently went through all the tutorials. This game gave me no joy and a lot of headaches. The animals were hungry within 15 seconds of having fed them. Vending machines were vandalized, but heck if you could figure out which ones. The objectives were very demanding, to say the least.

The upside of this game were the graphics, which were awesome. Plus, you could view your zoo from just about any camera angle you desire. It's obvious that this is a quality-made game. Unfortunately, the gameplay is not the least bit relaxing or fun. I really wanted to like this game!

Good-looking, but hard to get into

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: December 21, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Although the graphics were stunning, the animations amazing, and the overall level of detail just incredible, the control system was very difficult for me. The menus line both top and bottom of the screen, and the buttons are very small. Once in a menu, you have at least 20 more buttons to choose from, all very small as well, and all the menus look basically the same once opened, so it's hard to tell at a glance which one you're looking at. If, however, you're accustomed to navigating similar game menus, you may enjoy this product very much.

The gamer is also given a lot of choice regarding camera angle. I found the camera very difficult to manage because it moves very quickly and it is easy to completely change your orientation by accident and lose sight of what you're doing just long enough to mess it up. However, again, if you're accustomed to working with a real 3-d camera control, this may be the game for you.

My favorite part of this game is the variety in building options for your zoo and the amazing life-likeness of the animals. I believe there's already another review that talks more about this, so I'll leave it to them.

Hope this review was helpful to you in making your decision.

Better than zoo tycoon!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 13
Date: February 17, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This is the BEST zoo game ever! Its really fun, but takes up alot of memory and can be hard to controll when you make fencing. I would't recomend this game for younger kids though, as there's alot of finatial stuff. you also should assingen zoo keepers to different exibits (It will show you how to do this in the third or fourth tutorial) or your animals will die. (I've experianced this) Don't be afraid to sell animals if your cage looks crowded, or you have more than 10 animals in a cage. But Especially pay attention to your animal and vistor satisfaction. Remember,happy animals meen happy visitors!:)

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