A T

At first, I was skeptical against buying this game because it looked very similar to Planet Zoo in terms of basic game elements like engine, menus, interface and graphics style. Whenever I see a case like this where a new game by a developer is peculiarly similar to a previous one, I tend to think that the developer was lazy and greedy trying to make easy money by making a new game that is based heavily on the basics of a previous game. Most of the time, I am correct in my suspicions and cynicism but sometimes I am not - and, in the case of Planet Zoo, this was one of those sometimes! Planet Zoo is an excellent game that not only introduces a different subject (building zoos as opposed to building theme parks) but also has received some welcome improvements on what Planet Coaster had in terms of interface and functionality. The introduction of weather and climate effects as well as improvements to the realism of nature graphics/animations is definitely another welcome improvement. There are some persisting issues that need to be addressed (at least before another game from Frontier based on the same idea is released - and that is the issue of crowd management, especially with respect to clipping, pathfinding, and grouped movement of guests. For example, I usually construct a building to house all exhibits (insects, arachnids, and reptiles) in multiple levels (normally a three-level building). As there are no independent pieces (or methods) for placing staircases in Planet games other than essentially sloping paths up and down, I only have the path tool to create the floors of each level and the staircases to connect them. Maybe there is a better way but I doubt it. The challenge of laying staircases between levels is fine, however the engine of the game is not programmed well enough to handle the movement of guests from staircases to level floors and vice versa. So, the guests end up moving very weirdly up and down the stairs - specifically around tight corners (especially 180 degree corners). Anyway... that of course is no biggie and doesn't affect the overall enjoyment of the game, but if I were to choose one issue as the biggest one that, in my opinion needs a major overhaul, it would be movement of guests. Since for ease of processing by the CPU and GPU, the guests in the same group move bundled together and simultaneously, improvements have to by made so that in tight and crowded situations, guests don't get stuck. There are times when even the zoo staff get stuck and stay stuck like idiots even until they get completely tired and low in happiness but because they are stuck, they can't even quit! Ain't that stupid?! GET THE GAME AND ENJOY IT!