Author Topic: REVIEWS: Thrillville: Off the Rails  (Read 5138 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline mef

  • NWR Staff Writer
  • Score: 0
    • View Profile
REVIEWS: Thrillville: Off the Rails
« on: November 01, 2007, 06:47:53 AM »
The Chuck E. Cheese of videogames is here.  Is that a good thing?
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewArt.cfm?artid=14723

 Man, I wish I was still six years old.  Life was so easy and uncomplicated.  I believed in imaginary things like the Great Pumpkin and Santa Claus and professional wrestling.  I played with stray dogs and cats without fear.  I slept well and let my parents worry about the big stuff.  My job in any given situation was just to have fun and avoid crying or soiling myself.  If Thrillville:  Off the Rails had come out then, I probably would have hailed it as the greatest game EVAR.  Unfortunately, I'm pretty far removed from being six years old, and Thrillville isn't so thrilling for fully-formed human beings.  It's not broken by any means; in fact it does a few things reasonably well.  But unless you're a six year old boy (or have significant developmental issues that keep you trapped in the mindset of a six year old boy), you might want to skip this game.    


Thrillville:  Off the Rails is a theme park management sim, mini game collection, and roller coaster creator, all in one.  These elements are tied together by a thin plot involving you, intrepid park builder, thwarting the evil competition GloboJoy while creating a successful, functioning theme park.  The park design/management system is a shallow but fun way for first-timers to learn the basics of business and management while placing rides and mini-games in predetermined spaces around the various parks. You set the prices, choose your favorite colors, hire some mechanics and groundskeepers, and let the people enjoy themselves.  When I say this part of the game is easy, I mean as far as I can tell you can't screw it up.  If you neglect your managerial duties, nothing bad happens.  You can talk to the parkgoers to get hints and missions that move the game forward (but be prepared for lots of repetitive, meaningless dialogue, too).  If you want to run around and not talk to anybody, no problem.  This is consequence-free sandbox gameplay for kids who still occasionally play in real sandboxes.    


The roller-coaster building is perhaps the most elegant part of the game.  Players are able to assemble tracks in whatever crazy design they choose, piece by piece.  Through clever use of the Wii Remote's accelerometer, players are able to manipulate the piece of track they're placing by moving their hands.  If they want the piece to curve to the left and down, they point to the left and down, and the piece follows suit.  The system works well and adds a level of intuitiveness not found in the PS2 and 360 versions of Thrillville.  Once you've built your coaster you can ride it, which is also gratifying (although the graphics are so lackluster that the ride is far from the exhilarating first-person experience you were hoping it would be).  New to this iteration of the Thrillville franchise are "WHOA" track pieces, which can be anything from a TNT alley to a jump in the track or any other outlandish turn of events.  From a design standpoint, they're fun; actually experiencing them while riding your coaster is usually anticlimactic.  Still, for creative types, the track design is a nice little diversion.  You couldn't build your whole game around it, though.  This might help explain the presence of mini-games, which on the surface have no relation to theme parks or roller coasters whatsoever.    


And if you're wondering what a mini-game collection is doing in cahoots with the more closely related theme park management and roller coaster building, good luck finding an intelligent reason.  The best that I can come up with is that Thrillville treats mini-games the same as carnival rides, in that you walk up to a kiosk in the park and press a button to do either.  Luckily, this sequel to the PlayStation 2 original is right at home on the mini-game-friendly Wii, so the juxtaposition is less jarring.  And some of the mini-games are actually pretty good:  highlights include Stunt Rider (an Excitebike rip-off with fun, floaty physics), Autosprint 2 (a top-down racing Super Sprint rip-off), and Luftwaffe 2 (so faithful a 1942 rip-off, it almost replicates the first level exactly).  See a pattern here?  There are Gauntlet, R-Type, and Double Dragon copycats as well.  Some of these are lovingly crafted homages to the originals, while others are just there to fill space.  Other games are tailored to the Wii, like shooting galleries and mechanical bull-riding.  Either way, there is enough here (34 games in all, plus variations) to give the player plenty of choices.  Most of the games are multiplayer as well, and a party mode adds some much needed longevity to the proceedings.    


I say "much needed" because the single-player game quickly grows repetitive and tiresome.  Thanks to the risk-free environment and the lack of clear goals, the park management game that ties everything else together just doesn't have enough drama to motivate the player to make any progress.  As you build and build, you gain experience points, which gets you access to new games and coaster track pieces.  But by the time you get all the pieces unlocked, you're so tired of building stuff that you don't really care.      


The sound design is one of the better parts of the game.  Frontier Developments crammed in lots of songs and dialogue to populate the aural landscape and give the park a rich, lived-in feel (note that I'm speaking to the sound quality, not the quality of the songs themselves; this faceless mix of Hannah Montana and Huey Lewis stadium pop is my idea of what the waiting room music must be like in Hell).  Great roller coaster sounds and in-game effects round out an admirable effort.  The effort in the graphics department is less impressive.  These are PS2-level visuals circa 2002, at best.  It does run in 480p and widescreen, which is nice, but all that does is give you a great view of how little is actually going on graphically.  I realize this is a kid's game, but you could say the same thing about Zak & Wiki, and that game is absolutely gorgeous.  Thrillville: Off the Rails is visually serviceable, but that's about it.    


And that's about all there is to this game.  It's serviceable. It accomplishes its job of providing enough decent content to distract the average kid for several hours.  Add in the multiplayer and the slightly cheaper price point, and Thrillville: Off the Rails is a hard game to stay mad at.  Unfortunately, if you're outside the targeted demographic, the game will most likely make you feel old, or at least bored, or probably both.

Pros:
       

  • Some mini-games are fun
  •  
  • Coaster design uses the remote nicely
  •  
  • Lots to do


  •        Cons:
           
  • Graphics are early PS2 quality
  •  
  • Game gets repetitive fast
  •  
  • Some mini-games are basically shallow flash games.


  •                Graphics:  4.0
           This is one of the ugliest Wii games I've seen, even if its open-world style and giant moving coaster parts are partially to blame.  Some of the mini-games are kind of pretty in the same way that some flash games are kind of pretty.  Otherwise, Thrillville is visually repugnant.  It won't matter to some people, but that doesn't make it less true.

                   Sound:  8.0
           The best technical aspect of the game brings together songs, dialogue, and effects in a nice clear package.  And being able to turn down anything you don't want to hear (like the tween-friendly tunes) is a much appreciated feature.

                   Control:  6.0
           Though running around the park is kind of wonky, and the pointer function of the Wii Remote has some lag issues, the controls for the most part work well.  Mini-games either use the remote for inconsistent waggling or stick to the control scheme of whatever classic games they're stealing from.

                          Gameplay:  5.0
           Some mini-games work, some don't, and the rest of the package is unremarkable in every way (except in building roller coaster tracks with the Wii Remote).  It all evens out to mediocrity.  Children, bless their precious hearts, are too stupid to know mediocrity when they see it.  This game is for them.

     


           Lastability:  5.0
           A party mode keeps the mini-games fresh by adding friends to the mix, but the single player adventure quickly becomes repetitive.

     


           Final:  5.5
           If you're a grown-up, keep moving, there's nothing for you to see here.  If you have a child who likes to eat chocolate and run around in circles, this game might please him or her.  The slightly lower price point helps you out, too.  If you ARE a child, you probably didn't understand earlier when I used big words like "juxtaposed" and "repugnant", and you could care less about the price point.  Oh how I wish I were you, you clueless, lucky little devil.      

    Michael Flynn, Staff Writer
    Nintendo World Report

    Offline matt oz

    • APPLES!
    • Score: 0
      • View Profile
    RE: REVIEWS: Thrillville: Off the Rails
    « Reply #1 on: November 01, 2007, 10:25:02 AM »
    *waiting for Kairon to  declare this the best game ever*
    Wii Code:  7894 - 4898 - 7716 - 3649

    Offline Kairon

    • T_T
    • NWR Staff Pro
    • Score: 48
      • View Profile
    RE: REVIEWS: Thrillville: Off the Rails
    « Reply #2 on: November 01, 2007, 11:11:15 AM »
    I... I was thinking about it.

    But in the same way that I loved anime and RPGs as a kid and almost can't stand those things now, I also grew up dreaming of Theme Park simulators. I have Theme Park for the DS already, so there's really only one game I need to make my Sim Theme Park dreams come true: DINOPARK TYCOON.

    Until then, everything just looks so blah in comparison.
    Carmine Red, Associate Editor

    A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
    The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:
    Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
    Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:
    For never was a story of more woe
    Than this of Sega and her Mashiro.

    Offline GoldenPhoenix

    • Now it's a party!
    • Score: 42
      • View Profile
    RE:REVIEWS: Thrillville: Off the Rails
    « Reply #3 on: November 01, 2007, 11:18:54 AM »
    I remember Dino Park tycoon, that game was awesome.
    Switch Friend Code: SW-4185-3173-1144

    Offline Kairon

    • T_T
    • NWR Staff Pro
    • Score: 48
      • View Profile
    RE: REVIEWS: Thrillville: Off the Rails
    « Reply #4 on: November 01, 2007, 11:49:01 AM »
    Vegasaurus.
    Carmine Red, Associate Editor

    A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
    The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:
    Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
    Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:
    For never was a story of more woe
    Than this of Sega and her Mashiro.

    Offline NWR_pap64

    • You are not the boss of me
    • Score: 25
      • View Profile
      • Nintendo World Report
    RE: REVIEWS: Thrillville: Off the Rails
    « Reply #5 on: November 01, 2007, 11:50:42 AM »
    I played the 360 demo and thought it was fun. I liked designing rollercoasters and some of the minigames were fun, but I agree the graphics were ass. Seriously, its some of the worst character design I have ever seen!
    Pedro Hernandez
    NWR Staff Writer

    Offline mef

    • NWR Staff Writer
    • Score: 0
      • View Profile
    RE: REVIEWS: Thrillville: Off the Rails
    « Reply #6 on: November 02, 2007, 08:19:22 AM »
    It IS a fun game, especially if you add some friends into the mini-game mix.  But I'm tired of games that should be better getting a free pass on inexcusable things like terrible graphics.  The limitations of the console are there but still... I'd like to think they can do better than this.  

    I can't remember Dino Park but I remember enjoying the Jurassic Park themepark sim that came out long ago.
    Michael Flynn, Staff Writer
    Nintendo World Report