Rating: 
Summary: Be careful, it's addicting...
Review: This is an excellent program. Combining the first three releases, Zoo Tycoon, Dinosaur Digs, and Marine Mania, the Complete Collection has created a program that amazes me every day. My [young]son is completely hooked. Not that this program is designed for a 5 year old - you must pay attention to so many details (believe me the designers at Microsoft certainly seem to have!) - even Santa has been included! My son has learned so much about the habitats of his favorite animals, and when he goes to bed, I get to continue my zoo, which is located...on the moon! Great program, wonderful details. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Totally Worth Every Penny!!!
Review: I had been a fan of other simulation games and worked as an intern in a real zoo, so when Zoo Tycoon came out I knew I had to have it. I put off buying it and then came Dino Digs and Marine Mania. I wanted them all but didn't want to pay for each one seperately. I am now glad I was soooo cheap. Not only have they combined Zoo Tycoon with all of its expansion packs but they have added bonus materials. This is the ultimate combo pack of simulation games. I whole heartily recommend this to any simulation game fan.
Rating:
Summary: A very addictive game
Review: In this game, you start out with a park of your choice and up ot 500,000 dollars. You also start out with a few animals, but with research and building good exibits, you can unlock more animals and options.
You have to make many choices to make your guests and animals happy such as:
~ keeping the animals fed, watered, and clean in an appropriate habitat
~ keeping the guests pleased with food, bathrooms, benches, tables and happy animals
~ making decisions on ticket prices (and show prices)
~ making plans for purchasing animals and hiring workers
~ managing the buildings and grounds
~ identify marketing, advertising, merchandising plans
~ ect.If you don't have a good exibit for your animal and/or your animal is unhappy, you sometimes can't buy any more animals until you make that animal(s) happy again or sell them.
Some of the dinosaurs test the fences in their enclosure, so make sure that you have a dino-recovery team waiting incase one escapes. (I have even had a dino escape from an electrified fence, so good luck if you think you will keep the t-rex in his exibit.) The recovery helicopter will tranquilize the animal and you can put it back into the exibit.
If you an escaped carnivore back into it's exibit, it will start eating other animals and/or the visiters in your park!
If you make a show tank, you can build tanks touching it with dolphins, orcas or other show animals and build grandstands for people to watch and you have a show business Maintenance workers help you by getting rid of trash and fixing cages. Scientists and Zoo Keepers feed and take care of the Dinos and land animals.
In this set, you can have animals ranging from penguins, lions and giraffes to t-rexes, stegasaurouses, and ankylosaurous to dolphins, orcas and sharks.
You can try to build the best park in a theme such as african or prehistoric or aquatic, or you can just mix them all together to make one awesome park!
Rating: 
Summary: Not as great as I thought
Review: Maybe that is my problem, I purchased this game with high expectations. I am a very big fan of Roller Coaster Tycoon, both RCT 1, 2 and both expansions, but Zoo Tycoon is not a fun. First of all the staff members have less control. Your maintenance people (they are the ones in charge of making your park look nice), tend to have a mind of their own. Some of the animals are impossible to please. I will add that the game is more challenging. Roller Coaster Tycoon is all about the guests. You're job is to make you park work nice, and if you do things correctly the roller coasters don't complain about not having enough to eat or that they need more work done on them, or they are feeling crowded by too many guests. The animals however are easily upset, difficult to take care of and it's very easy to forget about your guests and worry only about your animals. That makes the game a little more interactive, you have to work extremely hard to make sure you're zoo is productive, the staff and zookeepers are also more expensive. You have to worry about the animals reproducing, (don't worry mom and dad there are no graphics for that the babies just appear), lest the animals grow to large for their enclosure. In my opinion that is what makes the game more fun than it's sister, Roller Coaster Tycoon. One of the big downsides (at least in my opinion) is that their is no winning. In Roller Coaster Tycoon you have objectives and each scenario is different or more difficult. In Zoo you pick your own level of difficulty, but there is no way to really win. I am very competitive and for me there has to be closure. I currently have a zoo that has been open for ten years, it's completely developed and I have over a million dollars, I started with only 10k, what else do I need to do to win? Needless to say I have lost intrest in that park and only bring it up and use it when I am bored. There is a fairly good sized variety of animals and you never run out, it's fun to make your guests happy and make money, you also get to see the private donations that your exhibit attracts and that is quite fun as well. Overall I am glad that I own it, but I most definatley will not be buying the expansion packs. It's a fun family game that really can capture you for 2-3 hours and it's seems like you just started to play. Overall fun game 3 Stars
Rating:
Summary: Really fun simulation game
Review: This is a fascinating simulation game. You get to build am entire ecosystem around making a zoo work. Since you're the zookeeper, imagine that you start with some land and a few dollars. You get to make all the decisions on how to build and supply a zoo: - keep the animals fed, watered, and clean in an appropriate habitat,
- keep the guests pleased with food, bathrooms, and happy animals,
- make decisions on ticket prices (important for crowd control),
- make plans for animal acquisition and personnel hiring,
- manage the buildings and grounds,
- identify marketing, advertising, merchandising plans,
- and so on The software gives you a number of different choices of basic habitat and even allows you to start with different amounts of funding so you get a chance to see what it's like to start a zoo on a shoestring budget and then when funds are no obstacle. It makes a huge difference and keeps the game really challenging. I have two relatively small quibbles with the game. One is that the description says age 6 and up; I think that children under 12 aren't likely to make enough good decisions to keep the zoo alive unless they get significant coaching. The second is that you have to have a CD-ROM on your system so, if you want to play on an airplane, your laptop needs an extra drive. Still, I think that this game is really fun to play. And, a word to the curious and adventurous: once you get your zoo going, you can see what happens when you fence in the entrance/exits so that the zoo visitors can't leave -- and then let the lions and tigers out of their cages. Or, get the Dinosaur extensions and let a T-Rex loose!
Rating:
Summary: Zoo Tycoon: The Pride Of Zoobuilding and Managing
Review: Zoo Tycoon is the most realistic and literally addictive game ever made. Design the wildest and most amazingly beautiful zoos from the comfort of your very own home! Even discover the secret of unlocking unicorns,yetis, and how to make endangered species thrive in your zoos! Make your zoo a thrill to visit by displaying the most interesting and fascinating animals in your own custom zoo! Decorate and design your zoo to thrill guests and they will never want to leave! Meanwhile, keep your guests happy and nourished by adding food kiosks of which you control the prices, animal houses,gift shops, and even carousels! Hire tour guides to lead your guests along the many different pathways of your zoos! Build viewing areas next to your exhibits for a wandering guest to stand under and watch the animals in the peaceful shade! Even design theme zoos out of all of the many possible landscapes to choose from in which to build and design your zoo! This is the most fun and realistic adventure that you could possibly have without actually visiting a zoo! You will be amazed and very impressed!
And who knows, you could be the newest and best zoo manager of all time!
With love to Zoo Tycoon,
Jennifer Paige
Rating: 
Summary: A good concept, but poorly implemented
Review: At first, I thought Zoo Tycoon seemed like a good concept. Designing and running a zoo seems like an enjoyable, brilliant concept for a game. The game allows users to design a zoo, including laying out and designing animal exhibits, laying out sidewalks, and placing food stands and special exhibits. The game's graphics and sounds are fairly good for a management simulation, and the game offers the users a wide variety of options in choosing animals for exhibits. The interface is simple to learn and easy to use. All of these things make this a fun game at first, but the gameplay becomes very strange and tedious as the simulation progresses. Some exhibit problems, such as trampled terrain, must be fixed manually, and the interface does not necessarily make this easy to do. At a certain point in all simulations, most of the zoo visitors complain about being hungry no matter how many food stands are built. A limitless number of compost buildings can be built for profit. Zookeeper characters have problems keeping some exhibits clean no matter how hard they work. Ultimately, these problems become frustrating. I eventually uninstalled it from my computer. I would strongly recommend not buying this game.
Rating:
Summary: Great Fun for All Ages
Review: The tycoon games get more and more fun as each new one comes out - the developers definitely learn from past experience and build suggestions into the new versions. Zoo Tycoon, the latest release, is about as fun and addictive as you can get! This is just about the ultimate sim game from a number of points of view. First, like SimThemePark and RollerCoaster Tycoon, you've got the whole "please-your-people" aspect. You want them to have pretty paths to walk on, easy access to food, drink and restrooms, rides and attractions to see. Your visitors love looking at animals, and the happier the animals are, the more the people enjoy their experience. But in Zoo Tycoon, instead of "boring" rides that you merely maintain, you now have incredibly animated animals! Put in a pair of lions, and you'll find them running around with glee, chasing each other, and lounging on rocks you give them. If you don't give them an environment they enjoy (say arctic tundra with cactusses) they'll pout and growl instead. If they're content, they might even have lion cubs, that you can watch grow over time! The game is great for kids, adults, and everybody in between. I have friends with 3 computers in their house and all 3 are running this at the same time, as each little zoo is being worked on. You can have lions, tigers and bears ... flamingos and ostriches ... black leopards and rhinos, elephants and giraffes. You can research the ability to work with endangered animals, build aviaries and other special buildings. The scenarios are great. You take over badly-run zoos, and cringe when you see the concrete-and-steel tiny homes these poor animals had! The pleasure you get when the once-miserable animal runs around its new home, happy and content, is very real. Their free-form games mean that you can build yourself your ideal zoo, too, on any number of map-styles. Highly, highly recommended as a game that will be enjoyed for months and months!
Rating: 
Summary: Zoo Tycoon is Great!
Review: Zoo Tycoon is an amazing game. You can build a zoo with some of your favorite animals such as, tigers, lions, and bears! You can also play senarios and do alot more! If you like going to zoos then why not manage a zoo? Your zoo could be one of the best zoos ever! Just be careful... dont let the animals loose or you will loose alot of guests and the zoo will go hectic! Good luck playin Zoo Tycoon! Remember: Do what you want!
Rating: 
Summary: A Very Good Game
Review: Introduction:
Zoo Tycoon (Original) is the best out of all of these. Marine Mania... is cool. Dinosaur Digs SUCKS. I think it takes the realisticness out of the game. Not only that... It costs A LOT of money and just makes you go into the red. Overall, though, it's a good game because you don't have to put the dinosaur stuff in do you? Gameplay 8/10
It's simple to build exhibits... and fun. It's easy to find out how your animals are doing. Everything is easy and doesn't take much effort. Like hiring Staff Members or telling them what to do. It's also cool to watch the marine shows. One flaw is the crowds. I needed more bathrooms so I installed them. The people continued to use the other ones. Then they get mad when they can't use the bathroom and leave. The A.I. of the crowds would have to be uhhh 0.
Graphics 7/10
Everything looks realistic. I wish I could zoom in just one more time to get closer to the animals. But still, things are good. Its not great, but good. Sound 9/10
You can hear all of the animals and the people talking. Seems like you're at the zoo instead of looking over it. Great job herm just not perfect. Play Time 8/10
I've spent hours on this game. If you do it right it can be a lot of fun for hours and hours. Replayability 8/10
I play this game alot. It's certainly something you can play over and over. Overall 8/10
A very great game. The one or two flaws is overpowered by the other great stuff in this game. Final Recommendation
Buy this game. It's great. If you're not sure... borrow it. Sometimes people don't like these kinds of games.
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