Ever wanted to be a zookeeper without having to clean up the mess? Well now's your chance … With Marine Park Empire you have the ability to map out your own zoo with exotic creatures, and then do with them what you please. Has your red feathered skunkyboo been naughty? All you have to do is put him in time out! Simply remove part of the fencing, and as soon as your assistants see the animal escaping, they'll box them up!
In Marine Park Empire you've got several different species to choose from. Each type of critter you get has different needs, be it their environment or the type of ball they like to play with. This gives you the opportunity to learn how your pet likes to be treated. Be warned, it's no easy ride. As far as gameplay goes, most things are laid out for you. Just watch out when you drop the critter on the map, or you'll have two pages worth of things you did wrong or things you need to do to make the thing happy. That is one of the most disappointing things about the game. That and the lack of realism.
The last thing I want to see is ten messages telling me why the animal isn't happy and how I need to fix it, followed by another twenty things to do with it. All the while, the animal is running into walls, randomly shaking back and fourth like it's convulsing, and magically having babies that must sky dive into their cage.
You create your own place with highly customizable landscaping. One big thing they did right is to give you a lot of options as to how you want your zoo to look. Honestly, you can have a polar bear exhibit that must be twenty degrees below freezing, and then have lions from the hot musty savannah right next to the bears.
The control scheme works well, as almost everything is done by point-and-click with the mouse. Not much room to go wrong there. The camera gives you room to breathe, but is somewhat irritating in it its defaults.
The audio side of things is alright - I wish they had more distinctive sounds for the specific exhibit you're viewing, but it works. Although the game isn't too difficult overall, so many different things get thrown at you at one time that it can be hard to manage. While this keeps you busy, it's also annoying.
I enjoyed Marine Park Empire for a few hours; after that I didn't see anything that looked interesting enough to try. Although there are a bunch of different maps you can play, they all run generally along the same lines.
Although I didn't care for it that much, if you're big into tycoon type games you might enjoy it more than I did. Personally, I think if there were more interaction with the zoo I might have liked it more. It's a $20 game so you can't really go wrong - if you're into tycoon's, check it out.
I'm an RPG fan above all but I enjoy most all types of gaming. I wouldn't consider being the best RTS/Flight/Space player though. PC gaming is my passion, but I try to be fair so my PS2 doesn't get lonely.
