RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 vs RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 - Part 2: Rides and Shops

[Alolan_Apples]

Yesterday, I went over the general details of RCT2 and RCT3. There's no denying that RCT3 had cooler features, but the technical issues made RCT2 more superior. Today's entry is about rides and shops.

The good thing about RCT3 is that there are more items and features than RCT2. But the bad thing is that RCT3 is missing some items RCT2 had that I liked.

What RCT3 did better:

Whether or not RCT2 was better, RCT3 still beats RCT2 in the following ways:

• Roller Coasters - even without the expansion packs, RCT3 had more types of roller coasters than RCT2. They have the Tilt Coaster, a non-inverted version of the Impulse Coaster, and the inverted version of the Wild Mouse. With the expansion packs, there are much more. RCT3: Wild has a lot of strange coasters like Spinning Steel Coaster (where cars rotate), Splitting Roller Coaster, Rotating Tower Coaster, and Robotic Roller Coaster. They have more building and riding features than a standard roller coaster. Not only that, but even the coasters in RCT2 had improved features in RCT3. The Looping Roller Coaster has corkscrews in RCT3, the Log Flume has steep slopes in RCT3, and there are new ride parts such as the overbank and large corkscrews. And let's not even forget the Extended Roller Coaster, where you have all parts available. RCT2's expansion packs - only introduced variations to other rides that are no different.
• Thrill Rides - another selection of rides RCT3 wins in is thrill rides. In RCT2 alone, it only has 12 unique thrill rides (3D Cinema, Enterprise, Go Karts, Launched Freefall, Magic Carpet, Motion Simulator, Pirate Ship, Roto-Drop, Snow Cups, Swinging Inverter Ship, Top Spin, and Twist). Two of these rides shouldn't count as thrill rides, and this is not counting the water rides. RCT3 has more, even if you're not counting variations or expansion packs. Some thrill rides I like are Tilt-a-Whirl, Roundup Ride, and the UFO Ride, which were ultimately present in RCT3, but not RCT2. It appears that RCT3 is a better game for building thrill ride-only parks since it has a larger selection.
• Ride and Shop Organization - I think RCT2 had better categories for rides, but RCT3 organized the rides better. There were some rides out of categories in RCT2, but it eventually became fixed in RCT3. There were a few double-category rides (mostly water rides). All the track rides that contained water (Log Flume, Splash Boats, River Rapids, and River Rafts) were all classified as "Roller Coasters" and nothing else. The other water rides were all classified as "Water Rides" and nothing else. Another thing they did was that the roller coasters have four sub-categories, which are wooden, steel, inverted, and water. They also moved the 3D Cinema to the "Gentle Rides" and the Go Karts track to another. In addition, they created a new section that contained track rides that were previously seen in the Gentle Rides, as well as thin coasters like Steeplechase. The shops were organized better too. In RCT2, all shops and facilities are packed into one category. In RCT3, they were split into four menus (food, drinks, souvenirs, and facilities).
• Transport Rides - yet, another selection of rides that were better in RCT3 than RCT2. They not only had more transport rides. They also redesigned the trams, and made it possible to have more than two cars per train on the trams. And the elevator became a 1x1 stacked ride rather a 3x3 stacked ride.
• Ride Camera - easily one of the best features in RCT3. You can ride your own roller coasters, and other rides too. The only weakness is that you can't ride stuff like the motion simulator.
• Music - you can add your own music files to RCT3 if you like. That would give you more music options. I don't think you can do that in RCT2.
• More Gift Shops - Every gift shop in RCT2 was present in RCT3, but RCT3 had more.
• Custom Menus - You can also control what each shop sells. You can add/subtract items from the menu, adjust the prices, and add options.

What RCT2 did better:

Usually, the expansion is better than the previous version due to more (and improved) features, but sometimes, the previous version has a few sentimental things that make them better than the expansion. RCT2 is no exception for the following reasons:

• Theme Organization - to be honest, I found the theme system in RCT3 to be interesting, but they do not do too well for rides and attractions. I don't like seeing rides classified in these categories because I can do what I want. Plus, too much organization isn't good.
• Gentle Rides - now one category RCT2 is better than RCT3 in is the Gentle Rides. You at least had a custom maze in RCT2, and I didn't like some of the gentle rides introduced in RCT3 such as the Ghost House. It's also worth noting that the Gentle Ride section in RCT2 is much larger because we didn't have "Junior Rides" or "Misc Rides" in RCT2, two categories that shouldn't exist.
• Ride Customization - although RCT3 had more features on rides, RCT2 had a few things that RCT3 didn't do. One is that in RCT2, you can repaint the track into another color scheme, and not all of the track has to follow it. You can't really do that in RCT3. Other things include different themes for stations and different colored cars.
• Ride interaction with scenery - despite ride events in RCT3, there was a minor feature in RCT2 where some rides (like the Wild Mouse and Ghost Train) can interact with the door objects. When it passes through the doors, it opens the doors. It doesn't happen in RCT3, making scenery pointless for rides.
• Predesigned Rides - in both RCT2 and RCT3, there were predesigned track rides made by the developers. What made RCT2 better in this field is that some rides made by the developers included scenery.
• Carousel - the carousel in RCT2 was better because it had a separate music from the rest of the rides, which was the Fairground Organ Style. The carousel in RCT3 did not include that by default.
• Food Shops - while RCT3 had more gift shops, RCT2 had more food shops than RCT3. What RCT3 doesn't have is seafood, Chinese food, iced tea, funnel cakes, or chicken nuggets.
• Shop Breakdown - if I can remember, shops did break down in RCT3 like rides did, but not in RCT2.

How I would do it:

As much as I liked all of the rides in RCT2 and RCT3, I felt that there are too many types of rides. I would keep the coasters, but for the other rides, I would get rid of variations of already existing rides and make it an option to repaint the rides to other themes (like you can choose between viking boat or pirate ship when building a pirate ship ride), merge the car ride, vintage cars, cheshire cats, haunted mansion, and ghost train into one ride and give out many options for cars, and make the research and development feature invent new types of cars for each ride. I would also throw in RCT2's and RCT3's customization features and ride interactions with scenery.

When it comes to categories, I would have transport rides, gentle flat rides, gentle track rides, roller coasters, thrill rides, water rides, and other attractions in different categories. The "Attractions" category will include carnival games, shows, and exhibits. Also, the "Attractions" don't need waiting lines and entries/exits. They should be treated as buildings like in the Zoo Tycoon series. Only the rides should have them.

Finally, I would add restaurants and gift emporiums to the shops and stalls section, so I don't have to keep designing buildings and putting in shops and stalls for the buildings.

 

[oath2order]

Personally I found the custom-coaster building in RCT3 annoying AF