ZOO TYCOON
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Much more than monkey business

By JAMES ANTHONY

Never again will this chappie ever silently criticise a zoo for not having enough drinks stands or toilets - having just finished another session of Microsoft's Zoo Tycoon and been run out of town by feral animal activists.

No, it's not all beer and skittles for zoo management and you really only discover how difficult a juggling act it is by playing the game.

For example, you'd think you'd start off with a few exotic animals in a few enclosures, provide a few amenities and away you go. Wrong.

As you happily build the first exhibit you'll cop rude comments from visitors about what an ugly place it is. So you put in some gardens and topiaries, then they moan about not enough snack places, or loos, or drink machines. When you finally knock off an exhibit and stock it with giraffes you quickly discover that you have to have the place perfectly set up or they'll spit the dummy.

There's too much grass, not enough savannah grass, too much foliage, not enough foliage, too much shade, not enough shade, too much water, rock, dirt, sand - and the list goes on and on.

As you try to improve the lot of your animals you discover a ban has been placed on your zoo because the animals are not happy and this stays on until you can rectify the problems. As you work through that, expect the visitors moan that your zoo is boring and there are not enough exhibits.

Sigh.

Fortunately, you get a first-rate advisor who can assist you with what you animals want and the game's information helper is excellent.

They'll tell you what particular animals like and apart from making the game easier for you, are a pretty good educational tool for children interested in animals.

While I may whinge about the steep learning curve, once you've got a basic handle on how to do things Zoo Tycoon will have you at the screen for hours. It is terribly addictive as you find yourself micro-managing the operation.

There are so many variables, but this just makes the rewards all the more, um, rewarding.

Graphically the game is very good but, boy, does it suck the juice out of your machine. I wouldn't try it on anything less than a 450mhz with 128MB of RAM - and a recent graphics card - or else your gazelles will move with the speed of giant tortoises.

Gotta go now, the baboons have escaped again. Seems my aesthetically pleasing choice of enclosure walls didn't hold the brutes in for very long at all. Now I have to hire more zookeepers and maintenance workers to fix it all up.

Double sigh.

ORIGINALITY 75%
SOUND/GRAPHICS 80%
PLAYABILITY 85%
ADDICTION 85%
ENJOYMENT 85%