Ultimate Ride

Get ready to toss your cookies?there?s a new rollercoaster builder in town, and you?re probably going to make yourself sick with it.

Rollercoaster Tycoon is fun?if you?re a business student. Otherwise, sweeping up vomit and figuring out how much to charge for corn dogs can get real tedious real fast. Sure, you can build big steel beasts that roar at 60 miles per hour?but only in 2D, and you can?t ride them?and the game could use a lot more ?rollercoaster? and a lot less ?tycoon.? Enter Ultimate Ride, which is effectively RCT?s evil twin. No management. No maintenance. Just coasters, and lots of them. Build them in 3D, ride them in 3D, trade them on the Internet. That?s it. And really, that?s all you need?and Ultimate Ride does them all very, very well.

Less a game and more of a creative activity, Ultimate Ride lets you create your kind of coaster, whatever that may be?wooden, steel, looping, or suspended. You can also choose from a handful of themes, including medieval, futuristic, and space fantasy. And since a coaster is only as good as its surroundings, you can build aspects of a theme park around your high-speed beast to give it that extra panache.

In truth, Ultimate Ride?s limited scenery options are something of a drag, but don?t be surprised if you see an add-on pack or a user mod community spring up to fill that void (some extra props are unlockable through keywords found in ads for the game?in the December 2001 issue of GamePro, for instance, there?s an ad with the keyword ?sphere?). What graphics there are sure are pretty, though?fire-breathing dragons, Big Ben of tomorrow, stuff like that. Give this game a decent 3D card and you?ll see what it can do, with high frame rates and rich colors (but an unfortunate feeling of sterility).

The interface is mouse-driven and the game comes with a reference card; even folks who don?t know the first thing about coaster physics will be creating testing their scream machines in no time. You can test-ride incomplete coasters as you build them, and you can ride from any seat in the train (a nice touch). The instrumental soundtrack is non-threatening and somewhat boring; thankfully, you can tell the program to use selections from your MP3 collection instead and make your own personal rock n? rollercoaster.

The pre-built single-player campaign unfolds as a mini-tutorial with building puzzles?build a coaster that doesn?t exceed a certain amount of G-forces, complete a half-built ride and get the car back to the station without using only the natural momentum, and so forth. But the ultimate goal of Ultimate Ride is to upload your final creations to ultimateridegame.com, so other coaster enthusiasts can rate your work. This was one of the coolest elements of Rollercoaster Tycoon?too cool, apparently, as that game?s website had to shut down the coaster swap section. Ultimate Ride?s designers prepared for that, and the CoasterXchange is a breeze to use as a result. Almost 1500 fan-created rides have been uploaded already!

Ultimate Ride succeeds where Rollercoaster Tycoon and even Sim Theme Park failed?it gives you the true sensation of riding a rollercoaster, the logical tools to build them, and the ability to show your work quickly and easily. If you?re just looking for a creative adrenaline rush without a lot of hassles, check out Ultimate Ride.

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