Zoo tycoon 2 animal age manual#

Though the game runs on the ‘power of the cloud’, and the actual map boundaries appear to give you miles upon miles of room, any adult will be able to ‘fill’ their zoo in 2-3 hours. The biggest flaw overall in this game is an awfully confusing one – your zoo has an extremely limiting ‘cap’. On top of that, there’s an excess of reading, researching (a time-based in game function, not actual research) and information that can become tedious and time consuming for an adult, but simply impossible for a child. It’s too much, and that’s just for one of the most common, basic things you need to do in the game some menu options go several layers deeper.

Zoo tycoon 2 animal age manual#

If you want to build a new feeding station for some giraffes you’ve just adopted, you first have to click on the exhibition they’re located in, then decide whether you’re assessing exhibit items or animals directly, then choose if you’re looking for animal care, enrichment or interactions, then pick food or baths, then pick the food most suited to the animal you specifically want, then pick which design, then choose if you’d like to upgrade it to be self-sustained or leave it at manual refills. The menu systems are difficult to navigate at any age, with simple commands occasionally going layers deep. The reward appeals to adults, the action appeals to children. Guests demand to see you play with an animal for a reward – usually money, or increase in guest numbers. That said, it wasn’t put in the game with me, or anyone above the age of 13 in mind – it is a direct ploy to children, and yet, occasionally, part of the micro-management. While this might have amused me on my first attempt, it’s not something I’d ever return to – to me, it feels like a childish waste of time. Playing with Chimpanzees involves pulling ridiculous faces at your Kinect (pre-determined/prompted faces), for the animal to mimic you. There are ‘sensory enrichments’ (noticeably adult phrase) which utilise the Kinect camera to allow you to feed, play with or wash the animals in a way that even teenagers would probably prefer to avoid. Other parts of the game feel entirely too childish for an adult to particularly enjoy. There’s simply too much to do, but that’s actually one of the most appealing parts of simulators like Zoo Tycoon the constant challenge is usually your reason for playing to begin with. As guest numbers increase, the game becomes progressively more frantic and the constant flurry of demands and challenges gets harder and harder to fulfil. As in most simulators, the demands don’t stop – your customers want more bathrooms, more entertainment, more food, more animals. Happy animals and happy customers mean more income, more income gives you the ability to buy things to fulfil the needs of your patrons and continue generating revenue. Zoo Tycoon’s biggest flaw, and what makes it questionable as a launch title, is it’s seemingly blatant disregard for a very basic and important marketing technique – the target market.Īs a micro-management simulator, the game is perfectly adult. It’s fairly odd that one of the Xbox One’s exclusive launch titles is a new Zoo Tycoon game – but not because the Tycoon franchise isn’t popular, and the games are certainly fun.