PSP World

Thrillville

Theme Park SIMs are nothing new to the electronic entertainment world. Anyone who's been around for some time will have sampled the delights of Theme Park World or the recently released Rollercoaster Simulator on the PC. Thrillville is slightly different though as not only is it brought to us by Lucasarts but it also represents one of the few original titles which have made it to the PSP platform. That's not to say that it's not available on other platforms, it is, it's just that this isn't a port of an old Sony 'classic' which really should never have made it to the PSP. Whether a SIM is at home on the PSP remains to be seen but there's a good chance your average owner doesn't want to concern themselves too much with endless facts and figures.

Your main objective in Thrillville is to improve a series of theme parks until they meet a suitable standard in order to move onto the next, more sophisticated, park. This means keeping a constant watch on a variety of management tasks, including building new rides and attractions, finance and customer care. It's not as random as it seems though and achieving your goals is a case of fulfilling a variety of missions which are constantly updated. These can be as simple as building a new ride (which can be purchased pre-built or from scratch) or more complicated: dismantling food outlets and building restrooms because of a food poisoning scare. Customer care can also be tricky and these tasks begin with a kind of multiple-choice conversation and almost always end in challenging them to one of the many mini-games.

In addition to your management and building skills there are the mini-games. There are around 20 of these in total and rather than simply being an afterthought, some of these could have been games in their own right. There FPSs, Shoot'em Ups, Target Ranges and even a kind of Robot Wars Not all of them are available at the beginning but success in any one of them gets you ever closer to you ultimate target. A Go-Karting track is available right at the start and others become available as you progress or by employing a research team. As with everything in Thrillville you'll need to keep an eye on them though and should they not be as productive as you’d hoped then it's up to you to decide if you want to keep paying for them.

On the subject of money, switching over to view the park map allows you to see which of your attractions is making money and which isn't, so you'll have to constantly update your park in order to attract more customers. It's not just about rides though because you're also required to maintain your park by hiring staff such as entertainers, mechanics and cleaners, all of whom have to be paid and trained, which takes you into yet more themed mini-games. Finally there's also a multiplayer which allows you to enjoy one of the many mini-games with your friends but although it’s entertaining it seems more of a last minute addition rather than something to enhance the Theme Park Management experience.

Visually the game keeps up with the pace of the park, with the PSP only reloading when you move from one selection of the park from another. Each section begins with a rather polished FMV intro from your Uncle Mortimer after which you move onto your park. These are all very cartoon-ish in design but with a suitably high level of detail not to mention plenty of visitors running from one ride to another. More impressive is the fact that all this trundles along at a steady frame-rate most of the time, proving it to be one of the more visually accomplished PSP titles available. A note of praise must also go to the interface which is both simple and intuitive to navigate although had it not been, the whole game would have fallen flat on its face.

Unlike many of the titles I have received recently the audio is both well crafted and implemented in an intelligent manner. There's little in the way of narration and the only 'real' speech is as part of the FMV intros from your Uncle. The remainder is a kind of mixture between the ambient sounds of the crowds and attractions and the various Theme Park Radio DJs urging you to see their latest attractions. This is all interspersed with great original songs from the latest artists and, while this may sound irritating, it's actually quite pleasing and never seems to get in the way of the action.

The control is simple and responsive, thanks to a variety of pop-ups detailing just what you should do and when you should do it. You'll realize just how important this is when you discover just how many of the park’s finer points you have to manage at any one time but, rather than overwhelming you, the detailed tutorials actually build your confidence. Just don't expect to remember all of this information should you decide to give Thrillville a break for any length of time.

Overall what Thrillville delivers is a thoroughly entertaining and immersive Theme Park experience which will engulf hours of your life before you even realize it. It could easily have gone so wrong too but the balance between actually managing/improving the park and playing the various mini-games is just right. With the PSP still suffering from a lack of many decent original titles Thrillville really couldn't have come at a better time and even if you've never considered a game of this nature I'd urge you to give it a go. You never know, it could be just what you are looking for.