Zoo Tycoon 2

As a kid I always enjoyed the Rollercoaster Tycoon series, so I figured playing Zoo Tycoon 2 DS would at least be slightly entertaining. THQ published Zoo Tycoon DS in 2005 but the game was not welcomed by a lot of critical success. I am not sure how Zoo Tycoon 2 DS compares to the original, but it has some entertaining qualities that make it a decent time waster.

There are two main gameplay modes. The first one offers a career with several different objectives and zoo situations. Some early objectives are light tests of property and animal management, but later ones put you in all kinds of difficult positions. There is a set of missions involving troubled zoos, for example. There is also a free play mode where you can customize all of the settings and create your own situations. There is a decent amount of content, but the career is not very difficult to complete.

I think kids will enjoy the biggest addition to the game from the original Zoo Tycoon—the Zookeeper Mode. Whenever animals are selected the bottom screen will display their stats, their levels of hunger and cleanliness, and how interesting they are to onlookers. To take care of animals you can play little mini-games to feed, bathe, and entertain them. None of these mini-games are very difficult or engaging, but they are little time-wasters that kids probably will not mind repeating a lot.

I was surprised that the only individuality about the animals, other than their appearance, is their preferred environment and scenery. Animals fit into "biomes", which are basically just groups of animals from similar locations across the world (thanks, elementary school science!). If you locate these animals close to each other you will have a realistic-looking zoo that pleases both the visitors and the animals.

Making your zoo with land pieces and decorations is not as easy as I had hoped it would be, but only because of the amount of tapping I had to go through to select pieces, delete them, move them, and so on. One incredibly confusing flaw is the absence of tab indicators. I had trouble switching through different kinds of objects to place in the park, like sets of trees, animals, and different types of terrain. The only reason for this is the lack of text indicators. You will have to figure out and remember where all of the icons are, and what they mean, before you can create a park without much trouble.

When I say that you can create a realistic-looking zoo, I say that with the hopes that you have an imagination and an ability to ignore terrible, blurry graphics that animate like Atari figures. I do not mean to insult a tycoon game, whose visual prowess I would expect to rival that of Age of the Empires, but Zoo Tycoon 2 DS does not quite manage that. The animals look like blurry, blob-like versions of their real-life counterparts. The interface is boring to look at but at least it works well and manages to keep the player from being too confused, outside of figuring out the tabs, as I mentioned earlier.

Kids enjoy animals, and will not have any trouble with the career mode in Zoo Tycoon 2 DS. Although even they will probably notice that the game looks terrible, they will probably enjoy a simple version of a tycoon game. Although there are other zoo games out there (Zoo Hospital, Zoo Tycoon DS, Zoo Keeper), Zoo Tycoon 2 DS is the deepest and most involving, while still being interesting, even though it is not the most mind-blowing game out there. For the target audience, that is all that is necessary.