Having come to enjoy the Sim City games and Railroad Tycoon, simulator games have come a long way and many have become complex enough that you’ll be stuck on designing and running a single building or ride. Thankfully, LucasArts and Frontier has brought us a sim game that’s fun enough for gamers of all ages. Thrillville might appear to be just a kids version of the familiar simulator genre but with plenty of fun mini-games that will have you enjoying every second of this charming game.

It seems that your wacky Uncle Mortimer (who bares an uncanny resemblance to Doc Brown of the Back to the Future movies) is so impressed with your amateur attempt at designing roller coasters that he picks you to be acting manager of Thrillville, his newly designed amusement park. You start the game by picking your avatar, be it male or female, and then you’re placed in the first park (Thrillville is composed of four parks or areas much like Disneyland). You’ll be in charge of everything from marketing, financing, staff management as well as coaster and game designer.

The only complex part of the game comes in deciding what goes where in the park’s many areas and listening to your guests' needs. Much of what you’ll decide to include in the park are basic necessities. Your guests will need restrooms but they’ll also need food, drinks as well as souvenirs. You’ll also need to spread the word that your park is open for business so you’ll need to put out ads in different magazines. While you can pay for somebody to do market research for you, it’s input from your guests that will give you an idea of what you’re doing right and what the park needs to improve. Simply standing in the middle of your park you’ll hear your guests demand more restrooms or places to eat. You can also stop and talk to them for a more precise opinion of the park and rides, but we’ll get into that in a minute.

Really, the real meat of the game comes in designing coasters and games yourself as well as enjoying the game’s rides and games yourself. You can insert a coaster already designed but the fun comes from laying the tracks yourself, making the ride as wacky as you’d like so you can add various loops and twists. The same goes for the Mini-Golf game. You can add some interesting putting challenges thanks to the simplicity of the design tools available. Yet the best part comes in playing the games yourself. Any ride or game in the park is open to you so you can join your guests in a game of golf or any of the many mini-games.

You can even challenge a guest to join you in a mini-game challenge designed around a ride. For example, you can join a friend in Wild Frontier, a game that turns into a first-person shooter set in the old west. It’s talking to a guests that you get to know their likes and dislikes as well as what they think of the park. You can also flirt with your guests as well as play matchmaker. Conversations in this game are handled through topic icons but each guest is naturally interested in different things so you have to pay attention to their interests if you want to befriend them. Sadly, befriending and romancing a guest doesn’t lead to much in this game except for the fact that your guest will be a lot more happier about being in Thrillville.

Another neat aspect of the game is that there are more than 20 mini-games you can play within or outside the main game mode. There are a few first-person shooter mini-games as well as some platform games and racers. Trojan Quest, for example, is a copy of Gauntlet while Luftwaffe 109 is inspired by one of LucasArts’ early flight combat games. Even training different staff members are a mini-game. Your mechanic staff, for example, repairs rides by solving a puzzle while your cleaning staff cleans the park by sucking in garbage and wiping out puke in a timed mini-game.

The graphics leave much to be desired but for a kid’s game the cartoon characters aren’t bad at all. You’ll get a kick out of watching a large number of guests running across the park with family in tow as they excitedly form lines or stop to admire all the interesting sights. The park itself looks pretty good and each area has a neat little theme whether it’s a futuristic setting or a prehistoric setting. There aren’t any flashy effects but the game’s interesting look is actually appealing.

The park also sounds alive with people so you’ll hear kids going wild and parents admiring the scenery. You’ll also get an indication of what the park lacks by a passerby’s comments. The voice acting is actually pretty good in this game and it’s cool to hear the PA system play a park radio station. Unfortunately the DJ always seems to present the same tunes (two standard rock tunes and a Hillary Duff-like tune). The sound effects are actually wonderfully detailed to the point that you’ll hear the roller coasters and its screaming passengers.

Thrillville is a marvelous way of introducing park management and design simulators to younger gamers and, to top it all off, it’s one fun game to boot. While it does lack the depth of other park creation and management simulators, there is a lot to do and like in this game that allows you to design your park and enjoy it as well. If you like the simulator genre, this is a game you will not want to miss.

Gameplay: 7.5
The financial and marketing aspects of the game take a backseat to the design and mini-games that allow you to partake in the fun along with your guests. You can also flirt with guests as well as play matchmaker so there’s a lot to do in this game aside from deciding what goes where.

Graphics: 7.0
The visuals might not look great but the park itself looks pretty neat considering the number of guests you’ll see running around. Meanwhile, the characters look appropriately cartoon-like.

Sound: 8.0
Even with the cartoon-like sound effects the game doesn’t really fail to give the impression that you’re in a crowded amusement park. You’ll hear everything from kids going wild to some poor soul puking his brains out after a roller coaster ride. The rock tunes sound straight out of a Southern rock collection but what really works wonderfully is the park radio station complete with a DJ. The voice acting is handled nicely as well.

Difficulty: Medium
Maintaining your park’s business isn’t easy since you’re also in charge of financing and marketing. You’ll also have to complete a number of objectives so you’ll really have your hands full in this game. On top of that you have to keep your guests happy. Ah, just another day for an amusement park manager.

Concept: 7.5
You never feel limited in the coaster design process or even when it comes to designing your own mini-golf course. Being able to mingle with your park guests and challenge them to many of the games sets Thrillville apart from other games in this genre. Even the training of your staff is a mini-game.

Multiplayer: 7.0
There are more than a dozen mini-games you can share with up to four friends (using a Multitap for us PS2 folks) and the cool part is that you can set up a variety of mini-games in a tournament mode of your own making. The only thing missing is an online multiplayer.

Overall: 7.9
Managing an amusement park has been done before on the PC but Thrillville for the PS2 just manages to make it one seriously enjoyable and light-hearted experience. While a few management issues aren’t handled as well as it could have been, the variety of mini-games and the ability to interact with park visitors makes this a rare treat for sim fans of all ages.