Zoo Tycoon 2 Review

Anannya Sen’s Review

A fun game where you get to manage a zoo!

Zoo Tycoon 2 is the mobile version of the PC hit where you have to manage a zoo and its various exhibits.

The graphics are quite good during the game. While the menus are pretty bland the animals themselves and especially their animations are nicely done and amusing to watch. The creatures look great walking around and bouncing up and down wanting to play. The backgrounds in game are not bad either and are dependant on what type of exhibit you create. Apart from different types of land there are different types of tree and object to place and each action has its own animation. A good job.

The sound is a bit of a letdown. There is a rather annoying tune to load up with and it's present on all the menu screens. In game there is no sound at all (although with that tune it's not such a bad thing). I would have liked to have seen some animal sounds for the different animals in the game, especially when they are playing, eating or sleeping. Oh well, it wasn't to be.

The controls are detailed but easy to use and quick to pick up. You can use the D or key pad to move around and select things. Once you have selected an animal, a separate menu comes up with the various options, feed, play, status etc. In addition there are shortcut keys so you don't have to chase afer the animal with your pointer, you can select to do things via these shortcut keys (like manage the animal, place terrain or objects etc). The keys are explained fairly well in the instructions and you get used to them pretty quickly.

The gameplay is probably the best feature about the game, it's just a lot of fun to play. Basically the aim in each exhibit is to raise a certain amount of money. This is done by making the creatures happier and the happier they are the more money they will generate. Also, the happier (percetage wise) the creatures are, the faster the money will come in (usually anything over 70% earns money for you). The animals are made happy by changing the environment in the exhibit to suit their tastes and also by making sure they are well fed and well looked after. You don't have to worry too much about wondering what they need, the status function will tell you how they are getting on. Failing that, when you perform actions a face appears over the animal. A green smiley face means that they are happy and like what's going on. A red angry face means the opposite. Also, to make things even simpler, the animals often have icons appear telling you what they want, ie a bowl of food for food, a ball when they want to play etc. In addition to all this caring, the animals also have a tendency to poo. A lot. When this happens, you have to clean it (using one of the actions in the action menu) as otherwise, their enjoyment of the exhibit goes down a lot. And finally, animals get lonely so if you get a male and female together, they often fall in love and have babies which earn you more cash (not that babies are monetary items to be traded) as more people enjoy your exhibit. Whew. You can see there are a lot of things to do and so a fair amount of attention is needed to care for the animals. Although in a similar vein to the Townsmen series, you can't leave the animals alone for a while as they will poo. For more details, check out the hints section.

The lastability is not that great. While there is a lot to do (3 zoos and 12 exhibits in total) with different habitats, the game is pretty easy to finish. It will take several hours to get through (probably more actually), but once you stabilise the animals and environment, then as long as you keep an eye on what the animals need, you're never going to run into any problems. There is one nice feature which is in addition to the exhibits. You can take photos of the animals doing stuff and you have a set number of photo objectives to complete. These will give you codes to unlock more content for the PC version of the game. Cool and the game is fun to play as well.