Coaster Creator 3D review

I'll skip the season pass...

Review written by
Daniel Scheid

March 4th, 2013

You will never get me on a roller coaster. Nope, ever since I was a child I have been frightened to death of these colossal speeding death machines. I understand why people line up all around the world to enjoy them but it just isn't for me.

I can understand how I'm going to sound really biased here but Coaster Creator 3D is in no way thrilling. Those of you seeking a quality theme park game similar to the once great Roller Coaster Tycoon look elsewhere. Coaster Creator is a frustrating troubleshooter where players are tasked to adjust the most minute details found along barren coaster tracks.

Throughout the game you will witness a bleak level of presentation and a confusing series of missions. The goal is to work under coaster hippy Gill McGee - an aging amusement park architect completely lost in the computer age. Instead of a series of lengthy tutorials, Coaster Creator 3D begins with a sequence of missions that focus solely on each one of the toolkit editing functions. What results is plenty of trial and error as you attempt to fix whatever is wrong with the coaster you are editing.

Most of the gameplay takes place on the touch screen where you drag and drop the metal track with varying degrees of success. The D-pad changes the perspective of the touch screen's camera and the L button switches between a handful of viewing modes, but the first person view is the only one that ever feels "right" compared to the others which only watch an empty cart zip around the track.

Clearing stages by fulfilling specific goals earns you new coaster themes and other Bric-a-brac that can be used to liven up your graphically bland park which is devoid of any real character. The other visual effects and faux Miis are frankly unpolished and don't add any value to the game. As for the game's score, I hope you like drum kits because you'll be listening to plenty of them on loop while trying to untangle various roller coasters.

Coaster Creator 3D offers a sandbox mode and the ability to share your roller coasters through QR codes. Whatever Coaster Creator community that may exist is far braver than me. I'm sorry to say that I honestly cannot recommend Coaster Creator 3D, the game doesn't seem to be able to make up for any of its fundamental flaws and I can't see how many 3DS players would be able to enjoy it for very long.