Genre: Simulation
Developer: Bullfrog
Publisher: Electronic Arts

The ride and visitor sprites, which during gameplay the player spends most of his time looking at, are bright and inviting. The menu interface, which during gameplay the player spends the rest of his time looking at, cleverly present a lot of dense information but in a visual way that is easy to understand. In general, the game looks like a fairly typical early 90s DOS game, in a similar vein to titles like Warcraft II.

Like most simulation games, ambient songs commence depending on the camera location, and oft-repeating sound effects-- in this case a cash register "ca-ching!"-- play softly over the soundtrack. While Theme Park's contribution here is nothing earth shatteringly original, it is at least memorable.

There is a lot going on in Theme Park. The player is tasked with creating and maintaining the park layout, restocking the shops, negotiating for labor and goods prices, keeping one eye on the price "inflation" and interest rates for the local economy, and even working the stock market. The control scheme, which organizes things into two menus, activated via the triggers, is up to the task.

Theme Park has an appealing aesthetic and an impressive number of mechanics that seem to spread themselves very evenly-- keeping the player busy, but not too busy. Theme Park's problem is with balancing; the happiness of the park visitors is way too finicky, making it almost impossible to ever really make money, especially with the unbelievably massive tax bills the game hits the player with at the end of every year. With a few variable tweaks, Theme Park could easily be made less frustrating and more enjoyable. But as it is...