RollerCoaster Tycoon 2

RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 (or RCT2 for short) is the second installment in the RollerCoaster Tycoon series. Like in its predecessor, the player must build successful theme parks to fulfill a set of objectives in various scenarios. The game was further expanded with two expansion packs, Wacky Worlds and Time Twister, which brought more themes and theme-inspired derivatives of existing rides, as well as new scenarios. These two add-ons were not worked on by Chris Sawyer.

RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 uses the same game engine as the first game, but somewhat optimized to sport more polished graphics, higher resolutions, a more intelligent guest AI and the ability to stack scenery items, enabling the creations of wonders of architecture.

New features

 * Scenario Editor
 * The ability to create a new scenario from a saved game
 * Roller Coaster creator (sandbox mode)
 * Ride track manager
 * Ability to use the Shift key to change the elevation of rides, paths and scenery
 * Ability to use the Ctrl key to set an automatic height, making it easy to place several times a scenery item at the same height
 * Automatic scenery removal during ride and path construction
 * Custom scenery, rides, parks, scenarios and paths support
 * General scenery removal function

Release dates

 * North America: October 14, 2002
 * Europe: October 24, 2002
 * Australia: October 18, 2002

Official

 * Wacky Worlds
 * Time Twister

User-created

 * UCES
 * VJ's scenario pack

See Also: Amazing Earl

Additional content
In addition to the scenarios and rides included in the base game and expansion packs, there were 16 "classic" scenarios from the original RollerCoaster Tycoon, a "Pink Water" add-on created by Chris Sawyer that could be used with the scenario editor, and six winning coaster designs from the Ultimate Tycoon Challenge made available to download from the game's official website and are preserved by the Internet Archive.

Criticism
RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 has received criticism for not being a true 'sequel' to RollerCoaster Tycoon, and being more of an "RCT 1.5". This is due to the game using the same engine as the first one, although being massively upgraded. It made the two games very similar in both graphics and gameplay. For the critics, the only thing that truly changes is the greatly increased amount of rides and attractions, and massive scenery improvement thanks to the new features. Unlike the first game, the "scenario indexes concept" was scrapped, unlocking all the scenarios from the start. Although obviously due because of the new "Scenario Editor" feature, this reduced the feeling for players of actually being rewarded. The largest negative point arises with the lack of backward compatibility from RCT and its expansions in certain rides (e.g. the Steel Mini Roller Coaster of RCT1 is incompatible with its RCT2 lookalike, the Junior Coaster), which made long-time first-game players disappointed with the sequel.

The add-ons had mixed criticisms: Most players and reviewers were satisfied with the first add-on, Wacky Worlds, but many were disappointed with the second add-on Time Twister as it felt incomplete, simply being new objects and scenarios thrown on a CD. The add-on's theming and objects were also too numerous and massive to be imported in new parks, drastically reducing their use on the game and most often reducing their usage to the official scenarios on which they were used. They, therefore, never became vitally needed on the parks, making the addon discs nearly unnecessary. Most custom & downloaded parks actually only require the addons for a couple rides and scenery objects.

Many of the bugs and criticized features RCT2 included were improved or removed by the developers of the game's open-source recreation OpenRCT2.

System requirements

 * Operating System: Windows 98/Windows Me/2000/XP/Vista/7/8/10
 * Processor: Pentium® II 300 MHz or equivalent
 * Memory: 64 MB RAM
 * Hard Disk Space: 100 MB free
 * CD-ROM Drive: 4X or higher
 * Video: 4MB Windows® 98/ME/2000/XP-compatible video card^
 * Sound: Windows® 98/ME/2000/XP-compatible sound card^

^Indicates device should be compatible with DirectX® version 8.1 (included) or higher.