This edition of Roller Coaster Tycoon was developed by Frontier Developments instead of the venerable Chris Sawyer, who originated the series. Frontier had experience with the RCT world with their expansion pack "Time Twister" for RCT 2. Though a new studio can often times spell disaster for a franchise, Frontier was smart and made sure to keep the series true to its past form, while expanding the capabilities by finally moving the world into real-time 3D goodness. In fact, I'd hazard to say that RCT3 was the game that Chris Sawyer probably had back on the drawing board in 1999, and it's the game that every one of us wanted to have back then.

The biggest and most anticipated new addition to RCT is the inclusion of "Coaster Cam" that lets you finally ride the rides that you build. No longer will you have to be satisfied with making your park visitors sick from afar. Now you can build the biggest, baddest, twistiest, turniest coaster and then put yourself in the front row, for a taste of your own medicine.

I play a lot of first person games in the best resolution I can muster, and I've never had a problem with motion sickness. My wife can't even be in the room with a 3D game without running for the TUMS, and I've never understood why. Until RCT 3. After riding a couple of really gut wrenching coasters, I could almost feel the theme park chili dogs and cotton candy coming back to say hello. If this were any other game besides a coaster game, I would probably have turned it off, but after a while it started to add to the thrill of the game. I know a lot of die-hards out there are going to think I'm crazy and I'll probably get "wussie" emails, but if you get motion sick easily you should probably enjoy Coaster Cam from the other room or keep a couple of little paper bags by your desk.

Besides riding the coasters, you can get into every other ride you set down on the map. I was overjoyed when I found that other gut buster from my childhood "The Gravitron" and could jump aboard. (The Gravitron was the one where you got inside a "space ship" and it spun you around against the inside really, really fast to simulate high G forces against your spleen.) In fact, I felt like a kid in a, well, a theme park, setting down and "testing" all of the rides for the sheer fun of it.

RCT3 includes a couple of other features that work to make the game really authentic, such as nightly fireworks. These let you orchestrate a massive fireworks show for your visitors exactly to your liking through a very simple and effective track editor interface. Set the explosions to music and you can add your experience to your resume for that dream job at Epcot. You can also add park features that are linked to the rides, just like the big parks. For example, your western themed mine cart roller coaster might hit a certain bend in the track and the nearby oil derrick shoots up a burst of black gold. It might sound simple, but the effect really adds a lot to the authenticity of the park, and gives whole new angles for ride design. Finally, you can easily sort park features by genre and build the next Western World or Space Adventure areas of your park just like our favorite cryogenically frozen cartoonist did.

Once you are done making yourself sick, you can dive into the "sim" part of the game and start playing the Career Mode. This is the typical scenario busting from the previous games where you are presented with a situation, a set amount of money, and goals you need to beat. For example, the first level requires you to get more visitors to the park, and while they are there, pick their pockets to build up your cash and park value. Each level has an Apprentice, Entrepreneur, and Tycoon set of goals, and you have to finish all of them to unlock more levels and work yourself up to be the Walt Disney of your generation.

Even with all the flash, don't forget that RCT is really a financial sim underneath. You'll have to hire staff, build rides, do research, set ticket prices and market your park to increase traffic. Once the visitors show up, you've got to think hard and strategically place your businesses and rides to draw them further into the park, while selling them as much "stuff" as possible. Ever wonder why the best rides at your local park are ALL the way in the back while all the shops are in the front? It's not by accident, and that sort of real world commercialism applies here. Figure out the best way to make your visitors happy and they'll make sure to not leave the park empty handed.

The sim part of the game is solid, and a lot of fun in its own right. However, Frontier realized that some of us don't necessarily want to be worried about opening our virtual wallets to find Sim-Moths just to buy an ice cream stall. Some of us just want to build our dream park, with the biggest, baddest rides and the meticulously positioned rest rooms and T-shirt stalls. So they included Sandbox Mode, which gives you an unlimited budget and a nice chunk of land, letting you create your vision as you see fit. This is the best feature of the game, as it lets people just build and explore the environment, and in my mind opens it up even further to its target audience.

But what about the Coasters? Well, like in previous versions, you can design your coaster section by section, building the ramps, loops and turns in the 3D environment. You have quite a few choices of coaster styles, from the traditional wooden, chain-driven, clackity-clackers to the suspended hydraulic launched beasts that make your organs get all squishy inside. Once you get the basic coaster drawn out, you can have the computer try to auto-complete the design for you, saving you those hours of rearranging all the pieces to get those dang ends to match up. A couple of test runs, a little paint, and then you can open it up to the patrons and wait for the sunglasses, hats, and car keys to fall out of the sky.

Overall, the user interface is exactly what sim lovers expect. The buttons and menus stay out of the way, giving you a nice view of the playing area. When playing the financial game, it has its fair share of charts and graphs, but you don't have to be Alan Greenspan to figure them out.

I don't have a lot of complaints about this game. Coasters and other track rides can be hard to build sometimes, and I would often have to go back to the drawing board several times to engineer a ride properly. Luckily, just like previous versions, pre-built coasters are available for those of us with less patience. Eventually a Ride Exchange is supposed to be opening up at the RollerCoasterTycoon.com site where devotees can swap ride designs, but it wasn't open at the time of this writing. Although the financial part of the game can be quite challenging, Frontier did the right thing and opened it up with Sandbox mode so that we can just have fun.

The graphics could probably be a touch better, considering how advanced some game engines are now days. I also was disappointed that there didn't seem to be any real G-forces applied to the view when riding the really rough coasters, or quite enough bouncing around. But frankly, I'm not sure if I could have taken any more photo-realism without a bucket near by.

I am reading that earlier versions of the game were quite buggy, so be sure to go get the latest patches before you play. I upgraded from the beginning and didn't notice any of the bugs that were complained about in the retail version. Besides, you ALWAYS patch your games before you play right? Nod now. Yes, I thought so.

This game is just plain fun. With the sandbox mode, RCT becomes more of a "toy" than a sim, letting you design the amusement park of your dreams where you can run around like it's "bracelet day". Just remember to wait half an hour after eating before getting back on, and if its called "The Churner" there's probably a good reason.