Rollercoaster Tycoon Joyride Gameplay

The RollerCoaster Tycoon series has been around for almost 20 years and we finally have a VR interpretation of the franchise.

Rollercoaster Tycoon Joyride Gameplay 3

Rollercoaster Tycoon, the beloved theme park sim series that started it all. Build, design, ride and manage your very own theme park. Oct 31, 2017 Hello Tycoons, Happy Halloween! We are pleased to introduce our newest update, containing a number of improvements to the game as well as the Horror PxP Pack! The Horror Pack features 35 ghoulish new pieces just in time for the spookiest day of the year – Halloween!!! Our new development team is focused on technical.

RollerCoaster Tycoon Joyride is a weird game. Instead of managing an amusement park, all you basically do is build roller coasters then ride them. However, you don't simply just sit there and enjoy your ride as you're armed with a laser gun that you use to shoot down colourful orbs and other targets. Thankfully, riding the coasters feels awesome as it's genuinely dizzying and surprisingly authentic. I tried to make the fastest and most twisted tracks complete with plenty of loops and upside-down parts in order to make my friends have the ride of their lives. At first, I was so immersed in riding the virtual reality coasters that I had to hold on to the couch behind me because it was a bit overwhelming how realistic it felt. For the record, I usually don't like riding roller coasters at all but I got over my initial intimidation after riding my dozenth or so virtual one in Joyride.

Of course, you can build coasters however you like and doing so can't be done in VR which is reserved exclusively for riding the coasters. Creating your coaster tracks is super-intuitive albeit somewhat disorienting. First of all, you don't have to worry about much as you can build wherever you please as long as the track doesn't go through an obstacle or itself. Making it go all around your environment of choice then seeing how high you can build only to let the coaster drop and bank and twist and turn is just awesome. Once you've completed your track, you can finely tune each point in the track to your liking which is very intuitive as well. Finally, you can select from a variety of unlockable designs for the tracks, station, and coaster if you'd like. It's satisfying stuff and offers plenty of freedom, too.

One aspect of RollerCoaster Tycoon Joyride that's very well implemented is the online community. You can easily jump into various menus and leaderboards and download anyone's created coasters then edit and ride them. I found myself downloading one after the other to see what other people made and most of them were pretty cool but some were clearly made just to get high scores as they were flat and slow so you can shoot more targets. Anyway, there's a local multiplayer party mode, too, but it's frankly a waste of time. You just build a track then take turns riding it and see who gets the highest score. The fact that you need multiple controllers makes no sense. What's even weirder is that only player 1's controller vibrates even when another player is playing. Did anyone even test this mode?

Obviously, it's a little disappointing that all you do is build tracks then play a shooting mini-game as you ride them. Sure, it provides a genuinely thrilling experience whenever the track is well-made but that's really all there is to RollerCoaster Tycoon Joyride. A couple of other areas are also lacking such as the audio which doesn't feature any noticeable music. I would have liked to hear some exciting tunes whenever I was riding a coaster. Also, there are only 2 environments to play within (Canyon and City) but they are each impressively large and intricate. On the plus side, there are plenty of missions that task you with building your coasters in certain ways that can be somewhat rewarding to master and you can also unlock a couple of extra guns: the Hammerhead Zapper and the Kraken Zapper.

If you've ever wanted to ride a roller coaster in virtual reality then RollerCoaster Tycoon Joyride is sure to satisfy. It may not be a fully realised experience but what's here still provides creative fun and exciting thrills.

+ Making your own roller coasters is both intuitive and comprehensive
+ Riding the coasters feels authentic and fun
+ Well-integrated community aspect

- Gameplay merely consists of building coasters then playing a goofy shooting game
- Could use some exciting music
- Currently only has 2 environments

Freed from the Financials

Typically, games with ‘Tycoon’ in the title simulate management and economic policy. But that’s not the case with developer Nvizzio Creations RollerCoaster Tycoon Joyride. This PlayStation 4 exclusive permits players to build and ride mountains of meandering metal. But you won’t have to worry about park financials, hiring works, and keeping the patrons from losing their lunch on one of your stomach-inverting rides. Instead, the game focuses on mingling coasters with gun shooting, which feels like an amped up version of Disneyland’s Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters.

Head into the game’s mission mode and you’ll encounter Joyride’s coaster construction component. Here, you’ll be able to fashion a rollercoaster in one of two types of contexts- either a Thunder Mountain-esque setting or a city environment. For better or worse, you won’t have to worry about sharing space with other attractions or coasters. Joyride only permits one roller coaster per map.

Building with an Uncooperative Camera

On the upside, the stages are expansive and filled with possibility. The desert map has a number of natural arches, hidden ravines, and high peaks inviting coaster engineers to utilize the topography. The Urban map has a cluster of skyscrapers and buildings to weave track through. Creating your coaster is straight-forward in theory, which players first placing a station on the map, when laying down pieces of track that can curve or shift in elevation.

But often you’ll find yourself fighting the camera. Even after toggling a selection in the game’s options menu, obtaining a suitable perspective proved occasionally difficult. As such, keeping an eye on the location of your station was awkward. To help remedy this, Joyride offers an ‘autocomplete’ function, but if you’re too far away from the station it might not be able to connect track.

Loops, Twists, and Inversions

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Despite issues in obtaining a suitable perspective, Joyride’s offers a lot of flexibility. Pleasingly, the menu system is decently organized. While you might have to back out of construction mode to attempt to autocomplete your coaster, otherwise, the interface is intuitive. Some players will appreciate the game’s relaxed approach to roller coaster engineering. Many titles demand ride designers to work within a realistic physics system, where there needs to be enough momentum to carry cars around to the next lift hill. But RollerCoaster Tycoon Joyride shuns realism. While players can lay down boost tracks to increase the car speed, they don’t have to worry about the coaster coming to a dead stop in the middle of the circuit.

Instead of constructing with pre-built shapes like corkscrews and bowties, Joyride favors free-building. Pleasingly, there’s few limits on the system and with a little practice, players can create the kind of dive loops, camel backs, and roll overs seen across most modern amusement parks. If you’re not careful, your coaster can become a misshaped mess. But that matters little, as missions evaluate your engineering on basic criteria like the length of track.

Aw, Shoot

Once you’re build your own coaster or ready to take a first-person jaunt on one of the game’s own tracks, you’ll be prompted to put on the PS VR headset. If you don’t own one, you can still go for a simulated ride. But you’ll have to opt out of VR output every time, which is bothersome. Either way, you’ll use the DualShock 4’s gyroscopic functionality to aim. If you’re using PSVR, camera control is coupled to head movement. But if you’re not, it’s mapped to the right stick, which can be a bit unwieldy. Ideally, the developers would have provided the option for dual analog aiming for those who don’t own VR. It needs to be mentioned that at release, RollerCoaster Tycoon Joyride is about as stable as a 70’s Tilt-A-Whirl. Across fifteen hours of playtime, the title crashed more than five times.

Joyride’s core gameplay centers on the roller-coaster ride, while you shoot at a multitude of objects. Some are fixed, while others rotate, and their point values are color coded. Coupled with combo multipliers, power-ups, power-down gates, and the ability to temporarily slow down time, you’ll undoubtedly want to prioritize your shooting. While there’s a certainty incentive to improve your score, the target shooting isn’t near as enjoyable as Bizarre Creation’s The Club. Most likely because you are literally on-rails. The other issue stems from the game not compensate for the speed of the coaster. Slower rides give you more time for aiming. As such, score chasers will likely make their roller coaster as exciting as the two-ticket yawn inducer from the traveling carnival.

A Decent Admission Price

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If you own a PS VR, RollerCoaster Tycoon Joyride’s amusements can be rousing. Although you’ll have to remove the headset for coaster creation, zipping around on simulated coasters. Those longing for more traditional amusement park management or a deeper experience than building and blasting will likely want to visit older titles in the RollerCoaster Tycoon franchise. Still, if you can stomach a few (game) crashes, Joyride’s twenty-dollar price isn’t too high-priced.

RollerCoaster Tycoon Joyride was played on the PlayStation 4
with review code provided by the publisher.

Review Overview

Controls - 60%

Content - 75%

Performance - 50%