Zoo Tycoon DS: A Cute Game With A Few Hang-Ups

My fiance always buys me the most creative gifts. Playing video games is one of my hobbies. I loved the Super Nintendo and DS versions of Sim City and enjoyed all of PC Sims games. I also love animals. On Valentine’s Day, one of my gifts from my fiance was Zoo Tycoon DS.

Game Play
Similar to in game play to games such as the Sims and other “Tycoon” games, the object of Zoo Tycoon DS is to build a zoo. Players must manage their animals and please their guests, building exhibits, restaurants, concession stands, restrooms, scenery and more. Each exhibit must be tailored to the animal’s specific needs, in terms of terrain, shelters, toys, foliage, and other details. On-screen messages and information from zoo keepers help clue you in to your guest’s needs and what will keep your animals happy.

A free style game mode allows you to build a zoo on one of numerous maps, ranging from small to larger, grass terrain to water. The game allows you to choose how much money you start with, giving you much more freedom than previous games I’ve played of this type. These starting amounts are associated with difficulty, and easy can be set to as low as $100,000 and as high as $500,000, giving you practically unlimited funds. I chose this setting first, excited to build a dream zoo. Unfortunately, money isn’t the only limit imposed upon the player. I was very disappointed to find out the game puts limits on how much you can place of each type of item. You can only use so many fences, limiting the number of exhibits you can build, which was my favorite part of the game. You may only use so many “scenery” items, which include park benches, picnic tables, garbage cans, and more. It’s very frustrated to have to find things to delete when the game is telling you that your zoo guests are tired, but you’ve ran out of benches to use. There is a limit to how many maintenance workers and tour guides you can hire. It’s frustrating because it takes some of the realism away from this simulation game. I have all the money I could want but our fence company won’t let me buy more fences? That’s absurd. They want my money! The company is not going to refuse my money because I built too many fences!

This game has a lot of customization options for your zoo. There are many animals to choose from, as well as a wide selection of other items to go in your zoo. You can select concession stands ranging from ice cream stands to restaurants. There are many fencing options, decorative items to adorn your zoos paths, and even multiple path options. As you build your zoo, you unlock new items and animals for your zoo. Items can also be unlocked through research. You may choose to fund various research and conservation projects in your zoo. These unlock otherwise unattainable items and improve various aspects of your zoo (increases the nutritional value of animals food, etc.) This added an interesting element to the game, as I was forced to balance spending with allocating money to these projects that would benefit me in the long run.

I found dealing with the zoo guests to be irritating. They complained constantly; we’re hungry, tired, thirsty, in need of extra restrooms, etc. The animals were a lot of fun to deal with. The zookeeper makes tailoring the exhibits to each animal a thoughtless process, but I enjoyed arranging the items and terrain each needed in its exhibit. Animal upkeep is mostly done by the zookeeper. Occasionally I had to remove animals from exhibits that became overcrowded as the animals continued to breed. The African lions seemed to periodically want a radically different exhibit. They would randomly want a deciduous forest exhibit when they’re from the desert and had been happy with an exhibit of that nature. I never saw it happen with any other animal species. The selection of animals to include in the zoo was diverse. Animals from all kind of environments were available including zebras, flamingos, polar bears, jaguars, penguins, sea lions, and chimpanzees.

The game was quite complicated, even for a simulation game. Much to my surprise, I actually had to take advantage of the tutorials. The tutorials were helpful. Unfortunately for me, one of them (the taking care of animals lesson, of course) froze midway and wouldn’t continue. I had a bit of a learning curve because of it. I made my first zoo without knowing the research feature even existed.

In addition to the free play mode, the game offers scenarios for you to run, fixing a zoo that was poorly designed or lacking in some way. I found these to be quite challenging and a lot of fun. I played the free play first, which was helpful because I learned the basics of what a successful zoo consists of. I highly recommend playing it before the scenario portion of the game.

Zoo Tycoon DS only allows one save game at a time, which I found very frustrating. If I wanted to run a scenario, I had to delete my free play zoo. If I wanted to make a second free play zoo on another difficult, I had to delete my other zoo. It was very frustrating considering the sophistication of games these days. Even my Super Nintendo version of Sim City had room for two save games!

Controls
The controls for this game could not be described as intuitive. They are difficult to remember, even after you learn them, since they’re very awkward. The stylus is used to navigate the menus while the buttons are used to scroll around the map. I would have expected the opposite. The stylus would have been well suited for map navigation. It would have been quicker and a nice way to zoom in on specific map areas. The buttons would have been a better way to go through the menus. The current control scheme is workable, but not an ideal situation. Switching between the buttons and stylus became tiresome. I’d rather one of the two be used primarily, while use of the other is optional.

The screen usage should have also been reversed, with the map of the zoo being more appropriate on the bottom screen and the menus fitting better on top.

Graphics and Audio
Zoo Tycoon DS is obviously not a type of game that would have impressive graphics. The graphics are what you would expect; far away and slightly pixelated. The colors are vibrant, but none of the edges are sharp. The result is a tad inferior to the graphics of the Super Nintendo’s Sim City. The animal’s animations are cute, but repetitive. They are difficult to see because of how small everything is, even when zoomed in at maximum.

Audio is of similar quality as the graphics. The animal noises are cute, but infrequent. The ambient noise is just annoying. You’ll wish you didn’t have any zoo guests once you hear them talking. I wish a little more work had been put into this.

Price and Recommendation
This is a fun game, for a time. I love animals and simulation games, yet I see myself getting bored with this game rather quickly. At $19.99 it isn’t the worst deal, but don’t expect it to become a classic in your DS case.