Thrillville: Off the Rails

How does one spice up a business management simulation game? Throw in some roller coasters, of course. Thrillville: Off the Rails puts the gamer in the role of a theme park manager to guide the park to success. It is the manager's responsibility to ensure that the park's patrons are having a good time, and as the manager players will decide on how to build and maintain roller coasters, rides, food, and even bathrooms. Since a manager's work is never done, players will also have to cope with keeping employees happy, finding new marketing strategies, and schmoozing theme park critics.

Off the Rails' tutorial gives the player a bit of on-the-job-training before throwing them to the wolves. Players learn how to build items, market the theme park, talk to patrons, and expand into newer parks. The tutorial is nice, but the game's interface could benefit from some streamlining. An "OK" button graphic is often displayed at the end of messages, but rather than allowing players to push a button to continue, they are forced to guide the on-screen pointer and click the "OK" button using the Wii Remote's pointer functionality. Once the tutorial is done, the player makes their way through the 100 "missions" that are available. These missions include building new rides and coasters, creating games, attending to guests, performing routine park maintenance, and balancing the budget.

Build the coaster of your dreams, but don't get in the way of other rides.

The most attractive aspect of any theme park game is building crazy roller coasters. Off the Rails allows some creative designs, but the builder mechanics are clumsy at times. Construction is hindered by out-of-bounds errors and conflicts with other rides. Thankfully, Off the Rails provides players with a "Find Solution" function in which the computer will search for ways around tight situations (although not even the computer always finds a workable solution). Players may find themselves having to delete much of their design, if not the entire ride, because of these limitations.

Players can engage any of the park's patrons in conversations at any time. Each customer has needs that the park manager must listen to and address. Talking to patrons is actually a game in itself as a friendship bar represents how the patron reacts to the conversation. A nearly clairvoyant Needs menu makes it easy for the park manager to find out each person's interests, wants, and likes.

Actually, it may be a bit too easy. After reading a person's needs, it is almost impossible to screw up a conversation as the player knows exactly what each person likes and dislikes. A conversation menu allows the park manager to talk about whatever matches up with the customer's interests. The menu also has options for providing gifts or challenging a customer to a game of mini-golf, kart racing, or one of the several other mini-games.

And knowing is half the battle!

Social skills alone are sometimes not enough in dealing with the game's shadier characters. I'm referring, of course, to those scumbags known as reviewers. Don't worry though, bad reviews in Thrillville can be fixed by a well-placed bribe. Gift-giving is crucial when dealing with visiting theme park critics. Strangely enough, these critics are not shy about letting the park manager know that they can be bought. The required bribe is usually something frivolous like a free ticket for a roller coaster or a teddy bear, and as park manager it is certainly within your power to accommodate them.

Off the Rails won't thrill anyone with its graphics. The textures are unremarkable and jagged edges are common. The characters are wooden and their animations are repetitive. The game looks as if it was directly ported from the PS2 with no regard for the Wii's superior processing capabilities. Audio consists primarily of theme park sounds. The voice-acting is decent, but the dialogue is atrocious. Players may find themselves cringing as their park manager pitches a "What's the haps?" salutation to other characters or banters on with some completely unasked-for piece of trivia.

The Wii's controls do not add much to the game. The motion sensors are used in guiding the direction of coasters and in the various mini-games, but the controls are not intuitive and they feel tacked-on. The Nunchuk's analog stick moves the player's character around while the Wii Remote is used as a pointer to select rides or patrons to interact with. The accuracy of the Wii Remote is sometimes an issue as it is easy to make mistakes in the menus. It is unfortunate that Off the Rails does not support the Classic or GameCube controllers as navigation would more than likely be less cumbersome.

The game's faults are evident, especially when it comes to the uninspired presentation and controls, but the strategy buff in me is eager to construct a killer theme park. Stage 2 will delve further into the intricacies of theme park management, so see you then.