Zoo Tycoon 2

Genre: Strategy / Tycoon

Score: 8.5 / 10

First I think I should make it clear that I didn't really finish the whole game. What happened was, I played till I had about 3 campaigns left to do. Might be 4, not quite sure. Then I had to take my PC in for repairs. They did a Ghost on my Hard Drive and so I lost a few of my saved games. Including Zoo Tycoon 2 and Yu-Gi-Oh.

So now I have decided to remove this from my "Now Playing" list till I have the strength to play this again. I was almost finished, so I guess this can count.

The Good: Improved Graphics from the first Zoo Tycoon Series. The new Zoo Tycoon 2 is now working with a new 3D engine. So unlike the previous version of Zoo Tycoon, you can actually rotate the camera as you want.

The Animals are much easier to please. In the previous version, you had to have the exact correct amount of trees, water, dirt grass and rock. In ZT2 you are free to build your Biome any way you like. This leaves a lot of room for you to be creative. The only thing that you should look at when you are building you Zoo is to make sure that the animal has Water, Food, Shelter and enough roaming space. No one likes being in a small and smelly exhibit.

There is also a new "Guest Mode". This allows you to walk through your Zoo as a guest and see what the guests see. This isn't just a nice little feature. It is very useful when trying to see if the Zoo Layout is fine and if there is enough seating, water and food stands and enrichment items to keep your people happy.

You have a massive choice of animals to your disposal and they become more expensive and rare the further you go down the game. The creatures are designed OK, but the behaviour is quite realistic.

The Bad: Surprisingly there isn't a lot of bad things to say about this game. Other than a few bugs with graphics and people getting stuck, the game doesn't really have that much problems. The Campaign is a little boring and can get a little tedious as you need to build your Zoo up to a 5 Star rating to complete the Scenario. This can get annoying to babysit as you run out of money really quickly.

Expansions: Normally I would create a new Blog for each expansion in the future, but I have decided that there really is no point in doing it for this game as I finished them in a group.

What would a Strategy game be without some good expansions? And Zoo Tycoon 2 is no different. It has 4 Expansions at the moment. I currently only have 3 of them as the last one is Extinct Species and I really don't want Dinosaurs running around my Zoo,

Endangered Species: This was the first expansion for Zoo Tycoon 2. I added something like 20 new animals to your library as well as some awesome new game play elements.

Walkways: You can now build Walk Ways over Conservation Area's and Exhibits where people can have a better view of the animals. This gives you a possibility to get twice as many people in one area without stressing out the animals.

Rides: Your Guests can now take tours in Cable cars as well as Jeep Tours through your Zoo. This to me was a fantastic idea. It's a great way to get to see your favorite animals close up and from high above and it brings in the cash that you so desperately need to build up your Zoo.

You get different sizes and shapes of Jeeps and Carts to add to your Zoo so it will fit in the look of your zoo. So you aren't stuck with some ugly stuff.

African Adventures: This expansion didn't really bring all that much new game play to the game, but it did add another 20+ species to the already large list of animals to add to your zoo. It also added a new look Jeep and some new things for your guests to do and look at. Other than that, it was just another expansion. Not much to say about is.

Marine Mania: This expansion added 20+ new Marine animals to the game and it also added some new features to the game.

Marine Mania now gives you a chance to create beautiful Marine exhibits for your guests to enjoy. You can have under ground viewing booths and everything.

Other than that the game also lets you swim around with the animal of your choice. So if you always wanted to Swim with a Dolphin, now you can.

You can also create Marine Animal Shows like the ones they always have at the Aquariums. To do this, you need to train your animals to do tricks. You have two options here. You can either hire a trainer, or you can jump in and do it yourself.

Obviously it's a lot of fun doing it yourself, but you can't be training all the animals on a constant basis. You have a Zoo to run you know!!

To train animals you need to follow patterns that the game gives you. Like make a circle and click on specific point, just as example. The better you follow the instructions, the faster your animal learn and the faster you can get those show up and running.

All and all I was really impressed by this game. Great fun, very addictive and well designed.