User Reviews (1 - 11 of 36)

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Very Disappointed in Game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 7
Date: February 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I love Zoo Tycoon for PC and was excited to get this game for DS.
I was so disappointed with it and wished I could return it!
The graphics are terrible, the controls are difficult to use.
I wish I had read some of these reviews before I bought it or I would not have gotten it, I thought it was like the PC version. Now I want to sell it and get the Zoo Tycoon 2 Complete Collection for my PC. Anyone want to buy it?????

DID NOT RECEIVE THE GAME

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 32
Date: February 18, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I AM WRITING THIS REVIEW BECAUSE YOU ASK FOR IT..I ORDERED THIS GAME FOR MY GRANDDAUGHTERS 8TH BIRTHDAY AND SHE NEVER RECEIVED IT WHEN I NOTIFIED THE COMPANY THEY SAID THE UPS GUY GAVE IT TO A MAN AT THE HOUSE AND IT WAS NO LONGER THEIR PROBLEM..I PAID EXTRA TO HAVE IT DELIVERED IN TIME FOR HER BIRTHDAY SO HOW I RATE THIS COMPANY IS AWFUL AND I WILL NVER ORDER ANYTHING THAT COMES FROM THEM AGIAN..THANK YOU PHYLLIS FEELEMYER

I'd recommend spending your money elsewhere

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: November 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game hoping my daughter could play it on our plane trip. I tred it out first to see how easy it would be for her. It doesn't even work right. I own the DS and I only play the Brain games so it gets used a couple evenings a week. My DS is in great condition. This game was so difficult to play. The touch pad is nothing like I expected. You can't touch where you want to place an object. You instead have to move around using the arrow pad. Problem is that the game is set in a diagonal mode. So you can't simply make a straight path by clicking up or down. You have to zig zag back and forth to get your path straight. Then the touch part is quirky. I thought I was doing it wrong, but you have to touch the object a couple times before it selects it. Then I tried to place the water reed and it never let me. It showed green and yet no matter where I tried to put it, it would never actually place the reed. Again, I thought I was doing the wrong steps, but when I tried to place a tree in the zebra exhibit, it worked fine. So it wasn't user error. In free mode you start with a few animals. Problem is that when I placed the zebra, the foliage that pleases the zebra isn't available yet. So they were unhappy. Never mind that you can't see anything because the screen is too small. Yeah, this game is going back for sure!

sucks!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: November 25, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I thought this game would be cool, but you can't even tell what kind of animal it is! If you absolutly love zoo tycoon, go ahead and buy it. If you don't, then leave it on the shelf.

Too complicated and impossible to read!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 07, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game for my 6 yo DD. I tried it out first and had a hard time remembering everything once the tutorial was over. I am not even 40 and have great eyes, but I could HARDLY read the words on the upper screen...way too small!

We are trading for something else. (P.S. We are not huge gamers and are new to the DS system).

Fun game until it locked up!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 29 / 33
Date: February 16, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Zoo Tycoon DS is a fun portable version of the tycoon series. I enjoyed discovering the secrets such as selling offspring to make more cash than admissions revenues every month! After playing the addicting scenarios I moved on to the freeform games where the user is given a large map and 100,000 in cash.
My park had 8 cages with the animals that breed frequently: Lions, Zebras, Buffalo and the tigers. The idea was to see how much cash I could accumulate by selling the offspring!

After 5 months in the first year my game locked up cold. I tried loading the game over, same result after a few scenario days. I retried the freeform game, with the same effect in three months.
The game has now unfortunately joined the ranks of Shogun Empires DS, Rebelstar Tactical Command (GBA) and Might & Magic II (GC) as buggy titles that should not have been released.

Pros:
1) Simple but powerful interface.
2) Replayable
3) Through tutorials!

Cons:
1) Statistics only kept for two months.
2) Game locked up.

Disappointed

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: January 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

When I first heard of this game, I was excited to have the chance to get a portable version of one of my favorite games on the PC. But the ds version just doesn't cut it.

For one thing, the use of the touch screen is awkward. The stylus is used to navigate through lists. I expected the touch screen to be a great way to interact in new ways, or at least to be used as the computer pointer was. Since the stylus is for lists, that leaves the d-pad for the map. You have to position the pointer precisely to do anything. Placing fences is annoying and very limited. All these problems could have been solved by switching the screens.

For another thing, the animation is very bad for the ds. The zoom is limited and the terrain is choppy and ugly. Objects are badly colored. The appearence is just not as polished as it should be.

Finally, there are some other small things that make this game flawed. Although I haven't had a problem with this (since I haven't played the game much), you can only save one game at a time. There is no music, which is okay on some games but gives only half the experience. There aren't as many animals and objects, and getting awards and ribbons just seems easier, which actually doesn't make getting them any more exciting.

If you can get past these things, Zoo Tycoon DS is a fun game. It's not good enough for the full price, so it's a pretty good deal if you can find it cheap online.

10 year old prefers PC version

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: January 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have the PC version of zoo tycoon and it is ALOT better than Nintendo DS version. The Nintendo DS version of Zoo tycoon has very poor grafics and the small screen is hard to work with because you can only see a small part of your zoo! If you are going to get zoo tycoon get the PC version because the PC version is so much fun! There are many fun games for Nintendo DS, Zoo Tycoon is not one of them!

Fun game, but to many glitches

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: October 03, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I actually liked this version better than the PC game. To me it was easier to understand and the controls are really good, I just couldn't get into the PC game. The biggest problem is the no saving more than one game at a time.
Even tho this is a fun game the reason I gave it two stars overall is because I can never finish a game. I get the highest rating for my zoo, I have plenty of money, I have no more than 7 or 8 exhibits, and then it won't let me buy anymore, not even a trashcan. This is extremely frustrating. This happens every time I start a new game. I have friends who own this game and they don't have this particulat problem, but they have other glitches. This game should have had better testing before it was released. I really hope they fix the glitches and release a second one.

A simplified version that keeps *most* of what's fun about Zoo Tycoon

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 109 / 117
Date: October 20, 2005
Author: Amazon User

If you're a fan of Zoo Tycoon I, you'll find this as addictive as the PC/Mac versions. But the game has been simplified for the DS and I've noticed a few differences:

- you can't read guest's thoughts
- you can't change the price of refreshments
- you can't customize the color of buildings
- when adopting animals, you can't read the informative text about their natural habitats, diet, etc. (You *can* read about the animals, but only outside of the game--you purchase animal "cards" during gameplay that you can review after you complete a scenario)
- there's no map of the zoo to easily jump around
- financial data and options are limited
- decorating and object placement is limited to one object per grid square--no more filling a square with multiple small bushes, for example
- you can only save one game at a time--there is no dialogue box to name or sort save games, just a single "now saving" animation, so don't expect to have multiple versions of games saved or share the game with another player
- it's a bit slow compared to every other DS game I've played, both at start up and when resizing the map

Still, it's Zoo Tycoon, so if you love it you can easily learn to live with the limitations. The construction tools work okay. I personally don't like having the map always isolated on the upper screen, because the only way to move the cursor is via the directional pad on the left--it makes for a very "clicky" game and aligning the hand precisely can sometimes be a pain. I keep finding myself wishing they'd swapped screen layouts and let you use the stylus like a PC mouse, but for whatever reason you're limited to the directional pad for all direct map interactions.

Finally, my game froze on me at one point--the first time I've had that happen with any DS game. I also accidentally triggered a bug in the research screen once where it went into hyperspeed and gave me discovery after discovery (while eating through funds) until I paused/unpaused the game, but I haven't been able to repeat that bug.

To be fair, I think some of the DS-specific changes to game play work fine. It just might take you a while to get used to them, especially if you're expecting a clone of the PC version.

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