Zoo Tycoon DS Review

Game_Name: Zoo Tycoon DS
Platform: Nintendo DS
Developer: Blue Fang Games
Publisher: THQ
Genre: Sim
ESRB Rating: E
GamePlay Rating: 5
Graphics Rating: 4
Replayability Rating: 4

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As cool as it is to be able to take your zoo with you wherever you go, the lack of depth makes Zoo Tycoon a rental at the very best.

The Lowdown

As I’m sure you’re aware, Zoo Tycoon puts you in control of your very own zoo. It’s your job to care for the animals and customers alike, keeping both happy as well as happily separated. There are two game modes: scenario and free form. Scenario mode gives you certain objectives to reach within a time limit and free form just lets you go at anyway you choose. Scenario also has a few tutorial missions, which help to ease you into your role in Zoo Tycoon. Oddly, Zoo Tycoon only has room for one save file, which means that it’s impossible to have a scenario game and a free form game saved at the same time. That alone hurts the game immensely.

Get Down to Business

The Lowdown

As I’m sure you’re aware, Zoo Tycoon puts you in control of your very own zoo. It’s your job to care for the animals and customers alike, keeping both happy as well as happily separated. There are two game modes: scenario and free form. Scenario mode gives you certain objectives to reach within a time limit and free form just lets you go at anyway you choose. Scenario also has a few tutorial missions, which help to ease you into your role in Zoo Tycoon. Oddly, Zoo Tycoon only has room for one save file, which means that it’s impossible to have a scenario game and a free form game saved at the same time. That alone hurts the game immensely.

Get Down to Business

Creating exhibits is simple enough. You build your fence and drop the animal in. You’ll want to make sure that the fence is strong enough, so that the animal doesn’t burst out into a crowd of terrified tourists. You’ll want a zoo keeper for each exhibit to take care of the animal. Once the animal is in its cage, the assigned zoo keeper will let you know what foliage, terrain, toys, and whatnot that the animal requires to be happy. After the animal is all set up, you can more or less leave them alone, as the animal’s zoo keeper will do most of the work from there on out.

The Customer is Always Right

Keeping the tourists happy is probably even easier than the animals. As long as your zoo has proper pathways, convenient concession stands and bathrooms, and everything doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, you should be fine. You can hire janitors to keep the park clean and make sure the animal exhibits are secure. And therein lies the problem with Zoo Tycoon. That’s pretty much as deep as it gets. Once your park is up and running at full capacity, it requires little to no maintenance to keep it that way. Before you know it, you’ll be pulling in awards left and right for things that took absolutely no effort. It’s not that the game is too easy, even though it is, it’s that it’s too simple, especially for a tycoon game.

Sights and Sounds

The graphics leave a lot to be desired. There are over fifty animals, a lot which you can’t even tell apart. The guests are just multicolored sticks and the different terrain is multicolored squares. The sound in the game is practically non-existent, with nothing more than menu music and scarce ambience during gameplay.

Wrap-Up

It pains me to write this review. It really does. I’ve been a long-time fan of the tycoon games and the idea of having a portable zoo to take with me and care for like a newborn silver dual-screened baby made my heart go pitter-patter. Sadly, Zoo Tycoon is a mere shadow of its older siblings, and even the portability of it isn’t enough to redeem the lack of depth. It’ll be fun for a couple of hours, but that’s about it.