Thrillville - Off The Rails

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Game Information

Developed by Frontier Development Ltd.
Published by LucasArts
Platform : Nintendo DS, Wii, Xbox 360, PSP, PlayStation 2, Microsoft Windows
Genre : Action & Adventure, Family, Strategy & Simulation
Age Rating : +12
Players : Single Player
Additional Contents Provided : None
Release Date : (NA) 9 October 2007, (EU) 19 October 2007, (AUS) 17 October 2007

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Synopsis

The carnival comes to Xbox 360 in Thrillville: Off the Rails, part park management sim and part adventure game. Build an assortment of themed roller coasters, racetracks, and offbeat rides while attempting to impress the crowds and turn a profit along the way. Unlike similar business-oriented titles, however, Thrillville's focus isn't on micromanaging a multitude of resources. You instead explore the 3D animated park from a third-person perspective set behind a male or female character. Characters are encouraged to converse with visitors, participate in mini-games, and even ride the coasters for a firsthand account of each twist, tumble, and turn. Fans of the original Thrillville will explore 15 new areas and compete in a total of 34 arcade-style mini-games. Xbox Live support is available for mini-game leaderboards.

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Gameplay

Gameplay in Thrillville is quite enjoyable as there are loads of mini games and environments that you can interact in and explore. In the game at the beginning you can choose your character from the character select screen and this will be your character throughout the game. Even though the characters are cartoony you will be able to see their facial expressions and features, especially in the cutscenes. You can venture out into different environments and partake in roller-coaster rides, boxing ring matches and riding up and down hills in a motorbike. These mini-games are really fun and you can play them for a while before you start to get bored of them. In the game when you ride various rides and play games you will earn thrill points. Gather enough thrill points and you will level up. As you level up throughout the ranks you will start to unlock clothing for your character, you will be able to unlock better tracks and more enjoyable games. You can interact with various kiosks, vending machines and booths to change their base colour, buy them and sell them for profil or you can get people to follow you and purchase something for you. The personalisation and customisation screen is definitely worth something checking out as you can make your character look like yourself or make him look really ugly. Only problem I had with the game was that there was no real storyline so technically I just bought the game for a load of mini games. But these mini games are enjoyable and may even leave you playing for hours to get to the top of the online leaderboards. The game also has downloadable content so if you do get bored of the minigames, invest a little bit further and get the booster pack. I can personally say the booster pack has some amazing games and tracks and is definitely worth checking out.

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Graphics

Graphics in Thrillville are somewhat underdeveloped. In the cutscenes, the characters seem really cartoony and not that realistic. As you are walking around the theme park some characters that you interact with can often have weird body proportions. I remember I walked up to a character called Stephen. He had massive legs, massive arms and the tiniest head. Although this looked quite funny, it was disappointing as the same time. The rollercoaster look decent and they are easily visible, you can see where they are and where they are heading off to. The view in which you control your character is pretty annoying as you have to turn your camera around when you're running and turning corners. This cannot be altered as well so it might be a challenge to get use to it at first as you can't change your sensitivity in this game either. The collectibles that you find in the game are easy to see and can be seen from a far as they are shiny and quite large. The mini games are rendered well and half of the time you will know where you are when you play some of them. Flaming hoops and paint schemes work well and do their job. The flames on the hoops look pretty realistic and you sometimes you can even feel the heat starting to get to your character. The paint schemes that you can alter all contrast well and look decent together no matter what variation of colours you choose. The game is better in High Definition but not that much better. The graphics in this game isn't the best thing about it and personally I think the gameplay is. Others will have a different opinion obviously but that's my view on it I guess.

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Controls

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Overall, this game is really enjoyable if you looking for a game with a variety of mini-games. Yes, it's quite a shame that it doesn't have a story line but mini-games and different leaderboards for different games to test yourself to get to the highest rank possible. The game can be picked up for cheap now and you can even purchase the Thrillville before this to see the changes and alterations that have been implemented.

Game Rating : 5/10 (Mini games are really fun and there's loads of variety, graphics don't play a big role in the game and controls will take some time getting use to depending on what game you are playing)