Stressed, giant desert hairy scorpion? You and me both. Instead, Planet Zoo had me playing animal psychiatrist.Ī pop-up would occasionally appear at the left side of my screen to inform me that one of my animals was stressed - just one of the dozens of ways that each creature can be harmed by their habitat. I wanted to get creative, build a killer zoo, and fill it with fierce or friendly beasts. I was constantly put off, however, by the creation tools and the level of obsessive care that each animal required. I enjoyed Planet Zoo most when I got into the groove of building, soaring up for a bird’s eye view, constructing bridges and walkways, and spinning up interesting architecture. Each animal bristles with needs that constantly call for your attention. It’s obviously robust, and will give the park sim faithful plenty of boxes to check and dials to twiddle.īut, as someone who enjoyed this genre as a kid, Planet Zoo isn’t as welcoming as I’d hoped. The animals look great, and the game provides some neat camera options that let you see their gorgeously rendered fur up close. Planet Zoo, for me, has been less an escapist power fantasy where I effectively build an impressive park and manage cute virtual animals, and more a pretty accurate representation of what it would look like to be suddenly tasked with running a real zoo. In my quest to bring in a small number of guests, I quickly ran out of money. My animals, each with dozens of wellness sliders, kept dying. Then the tutorials suddenly gave way to a level where I was expected to build a park from scratch with little guidance. These were hand-holding in a way that I welcomed, as my in-game bosses warmly guided me through the basics of zoo management. Career Mode begins with you as an apprentice zoo manager learning the ropes via a trio of tutorial levels. Thanks to the game’s exhausting, menu-heavy interface, needy animals, and fiddly 3D building controls, this likely won’t be a good introduction for anyone looking to get into the genre for the first time.
I was surprised, then, by the difficulty I had approaching Frontier Developments’ spiritual successor to Zoo Tycoon as an adult.
0 kommentar(er)
