,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, / Theme Park / / DS Version / / Originally by Bullfrog Productions / / Ported and owned by Electronic Arts / ``````````````````````````````````````` Author Tony (Knightcrawler) GameFAQs User Name Knightcrawer GameFAQs User ID 78328 Created 2-16-2009 Last Updated 7-27-2009 Version Number 1.01 Table of Contents: I. "What is Theme Park" And Introduction II. Getting Started and Options III. Rides/Shops/Facilities/Staff IV. Goals/Objectives and National Statistics V. Research and Development VI. Time, Taxes, and Money VII. Strategies VIII. Frequently Asked Questions (or what I expect to be) IX. Game Version Differences X. FAQ Versions XI. Contact XII. Credits and Disclaimer I. "What is Theme Park?" and Introduction Theme Park is an economic simulation video game that's been around for longer than many people reading this FAQ. It's a bit more fun than that sounds, as it allows you to design your very own theme parks - the kind you might have find yourself daydreaming about - placing rides, restaurants, game stalls, trees, toilets, entertainers, and almost everything else you might imagine in a theme park. It might be a dream job, but building a theme park is an extremely risky venture in any era. The game was originally created by Bullfrog Productions, based in the United Kingdom and home to the now-famous game designer, Peter Molyneux. He's gone on to be involved in games like Black & White and Fable. The game was released on many different platforms, but it was orignally released on the PC where it met with massive success. At the time, it was highly innovative and the *only* theme park/roller coaster simulation game. Several sequels to the original Theme Park were developed, including Theme Park World (known as Sim Theme Park in the U.S.), and then later Theme Park Inc (known as SimCoaster in the U.S.). The names were likely changed for the United States releases because of the massive popularity of the Sim series, created by Maxis and Will Wright. Other games were greatly inspired by Theme Park, including Roller Coaster Tycoon. The version of Theme Park I am writing this FAQ for specifically is the DS version of the game, but most of the strategies and information found within are usable in every version. I'll list the differences I have noticed between the DS version and the original PC version later in the guide. Surprisingly, the DS version of the game was created by a Japanese studio belonging to Electronic Arts (or EA for short), who purchased Bullfrog Productions as one of their early aquisitions many years ago. This is surprising because to the best of my knowledge, Western games are in general not very popular in Japan. If you aren't sure what you're doing - if you have even one significant weakness in this simulation - you will most likely fail. That's why I have written this FAQ; it's not to tell you exactly how to run your dream park and take all the fun away, but to help you overcome any troubles you might have. No strategy guide was released for this game in the past decade, very few FAQs exist for this game, and those that do exist have a limited scope. The scope of this FAQ will be limited as well, but hopefully combined with the other FAQs for this game as well as your own strategy and discoveries will be enough. If you need any additional help or wish to correct or add to my FAQ, simply see my contact information below. I suggest you scroll back up and take a look at this FAQ's Table of Contents to find the area of the FAQ you need to use. II. Getting Started and Options When you start the game out, you'll find yourself at a map of the world. This is where you select which country you wish to build a theme park in. You can only work on one theme park at a time; whenever you move to a new theme park, you must sell your old one. You will never be able to visit it again. Don't let that get you down, though. Your next one will be even better, because as you complete parks in each country, not only will your technique at park design improve, but you will also unlock new assets for your future parks. You'll also be able to take the money you made on this park to your next park, meaning you won't have to force youself to start off by placing bad rides and attractions. If this is your first time playing, you'll only be able to select the United Kingdom as a park location. Thankfully, it's free to start a park here. All other countries require some amount of money to set up a park there. Each country has different statistics that will alter your experience, as well as different weather (which has very little influence) and different terrain (which also has very little influence unless that terrain consists of rubble). In this version of the game (the DS version), each country also has a different special national feature. One ride or shop will have its image replaced with a new one, although it functions exactly the same as the normal one. After selecting your location, you'll recieve the following options: Park Name - Simply name your park. Game Mode - Sandbox, Sim, or Full Sandbox is the option for you if you have no idea what's going on. I'd suggest simply turning on the tutorial and letting it guide you, but if you want to take things a bit slow, go ahead and pick this the first time. However, you will be limited to a small number of attractions. So I wouldn't suggest using this mode for very long. Sim is my prefered option. You get to research new and better attractions, busses, and staff training. You also "get" to negotiate with your staff and the distributors that sell you supplies for your shops. Normally during these negotations, you're forced to concede a certain amount and pay them more money to do the same job for you. This will raise the prices at your shops and the amount you pay your staff monthly. However, you can actually negotiate so well with them that you end up paying *less* money! So don't think of these negotiations (which are non-optional and you have no control over their timing) as something to drag you down; think of them as bonus rounds where you can get more money to improve your park! Full is prefered by many people because you are able to play the stocks, buying and selling stocks (partial ownership of a company) of other, competing theme parks to make money. If you don't know about the stock market, the idea is to buy stocks when the company is doing poorly and the stocks are cheap, and to sell them when the company has reached what you think will be its peak, where you can make the most money off your purchase. However, it's a double-edged sword. These competing companies can also buy stock from your park. If they buy your park out the majority of your park, you are no longer really the owner of your park and then - at least in the PC version of the game - it's game over. In the full version, you also have to manage your shop's inventories, buying fries and balloons and whatnot to make sure you have those items to sell. This is all handled automatically in the sim version of the game and as far as I can tell, offers no real advantage. Of course, in the full version you can also explore research and development as well as negotiations from the Sim version. Sim Level - Easy, Medium, or Hard This option basically determines how picky and mean-spirited your theme park's guests will be. On harder difficulties, guests are less likely to buy items from you, especially if you are making a large profit. This will hurt your overall income. If you are a bit of a masochist or need to prove to yourself or someone else that you are very good at the game, go ahead and try the harder difficulty settings. Otherwise, you might as well go for easy. It's really just about how you get your fun out of the game. Tutorial - Yes, No. Selecting "yes" will start you off with a tutorial that is very useful the first time around and very annoying once you already know what you are doing. You'll be forced to place certain rides and paths in certain locations, so once you know what you're doing, I'd select "no" so that you can do build the park however you like. Advisors - Lee, Mr. Bell, Mocca, Crystal This is a new feature for the DS version of the game. In the original, PC version of the game, there was only one advisor. I believe you could turn him on or off, but he might very well have been there the entire time. Some people, including myself, got tired of him and it seems EA was familiar with this complaint and created 3 additional advisors. There's Lee, a college-age guy who seems pretty laid back. There's Mocca, a girl who looks like she's still a preteen, but the game lists her as 18 years old. Then there's Crystal, who is a business woman that appears to be in her thirties. Your choice of advisor changes the wording on game messages for you, as well as the main music you will hear during the game. You can hear other music in the game by selecting most any ride while the game speed is one of the two slower settings. Your advisor will always have SOMETHING to say to you, and it will usually be some kind of corrective message. Don't take it too personally, or simply ignore most of what they say. III. Rides/Shops/Facilities/Staff There are four main types of "items" you can place in your theme park: rides, shops, facilities, and staff. All of these are very important! You can't make a successful park if you ignore any one of these. Rides attract guests to your park, making them more willing to pay more money to enter. The more in number, more diverse, and better the rides and/or lower the gate/ticket/entrance price, the more guests you'll have in your park, within some arbitrary limit. Guests don't pay money to get on individual rides, so they don't many you any money directly. Rides obviously also make guests happy, but if the rides are not exciting enough, there will be very little effect on their happiness and they might simply become unhappier because they've spent more time in the park doing things that weren't very entertaining. Rides can carry a contain a certain number of guests. All of those guests will be entertained, but any guests waiting in line for that ride will become bored and frustrated. However, if you make the lines too short, guests will simply pass the ride by because the line was full. There are three types of rides: basic rides, tracked rides, and additions. Basic rides are really simple and self-contained. Tracked rides are rides where you place an entrance/exit, and then create and customize the track yourself. The longer the track, the more the guests will be entertained. However, tracked rides are also potentially dangerous, so the longer it is, the more chances that a guest will be thrown off to the edge of the park and become extremely unhappy. Also, the longer the track is, the longer guests are on the ride, taking up the ride's capacity. Therefore, if a tracked ride is longer, guests have to wait longer in line. Additions are not rides by themselves, but merely additional parts you can add to tracked rides. There are only three of these in the entire game, and they're only for the two roller coasters. Shops are what make you money. There are three basic types of shops, although in the DS version of they game two of them seem more similar than they are. Those types are food, stores, and games. Stores and games don't have a major impact on guests' happiness, but food does. If your park has no food (and by "food" I mean both food and drink stores), guests will become unhappy. If guests have recently eaten, they will no want to eat again for some time. The same is true for if they have had a drink recently. However, if they have eaten recently (especially if they've eaten salty fries or now in the DS version of the game, spicy food) they will be more likely to want to buy a drink. When guests are made happy by rides or (rarely) entertainers, they will be more willing to purchase from your stores. Guests will never, ever purchase from the same store or two identical stores twice. In the original PC version, you could see by what balloons guests carried which items they had, but in the DS version you have to pay attention to their thought bubbles as they pass stores. It is best to have at least one of every store-type shop in your park. You should only have more than one of a particular store if you believe that certain traffic in your park will reach one store, but another route of traffic will not. In that case, it may be okay to put another store on that other route of traffic. The final type of shop are games. Guests will pay money to play these games, and based on the probability of winning, will either get nothing and you'll make pure profit, or they'll win a prize and you'll then have to pay for their prize. Obviously, the only way to make a profit is if the amount of money spent by both losers and winners is greater than the amount of money paid to winners. Guests will play the game based on whether they think they have a good chance of winning, and whether they think the prize is expensive enough. If a guest has won a prize from a particular type of game, they will not play that game again. If they have not won the prize, they will play the game again if they pass by another later and it's addictive enough. Facilities are of mixed importance. The trees, lakes, and walls don't really make people much (or at all) happier, or even increase your park's value. They only serve to make your park look better to you. However, one-way signs, sign posts, and restrooms are extremely important. One-way signs cause guests to walk ONLY in the direction indicated. You can actually use these to get guests stuck in areas where they can only spend money, but they will become unhappy, make messes, and eventually ignore the one-way signs. Besides, that will keep them in the park for a long time and you won't get new guests (with more money) until your old guests are gone. One-way signs are placed by selecting the feature and then laying it down onto a path. It will always face upward at first, but tapping it again and again will change the direction 90 degrees at a time. Sign posts act similarly to one-way signs, except they're more of a suggestion than an order to guests. Also, there is an additional step with sign posts: you have to target a ride, shop, or the exit. Basically, once you select the sign post and want to place one, you will tap on the ride, shop, or park exit that you think they should be led to next. This will cause the selected object to flash green. Then, tap on a piece of path to place a sign post there. It will automatically attempt to orient the sign correctly, but you may need to adjust it by tapping it again as the guests will go in the direction the sign faces if they are interested in it. Walls can also be useful for keeping guests from getting themselves stuck on difficult terrain, or walking through areas of your park you don't want them to. However, if not placed right, they can by themselves cause guests to get stuck. So can sign posts and one-way signs, actually. If you don't place enough restrooms, and in locations where guests can get to them, your guests will start leaving some rather disgusting messes. And these messes start a sort of chain reaction that create more messes. Also, the nicer the restrooms are, the less frequent these messes are. Restrooms are by far the most important facility that guests need. If your park doesn't have it, it's a bad park. The same isn't necessarily true for one-way signs, sign posts, and it's definitely not true for walls. Staff is the last "item" mentioned at the start of this section. Of course, they are not items at all, but your faithful employees who really do keep your park running. Until you open the gates, you have absolutely no need for them. But once the gates are open, along with the guests come rushing in a million problems. As guests ride rides, they wear the rides down and cause them to need to be repaired by mechanics. As guests walk through the park, especially near food shops, they will leave trash and sometimes vomit (especially if nobody cleans up the trash or other vomit) that will need to be cleaned up by handymen. Guests will also tend to vomit after getting off fast rides. Guards are necessary to ward off gang members and to give them they boot when they arive. Entertainers are worthless unless you know how to use them, and even then they often do what they want, and what they want is rarely what you want. Essentially, though, you should place entertainers in long lines. In the PC version, they would give out umbrellas to guests when it was raining, making them somewhat important staff members. However, that doesn't hold true in the DS version of the game. A full list of rides follows. For your convenience, I've written the maximum ride capacity AFTER (as far as I know) full research and development. This will help give you an idea of how much room to grow certain rides have. Also, as the game can be somewhat ambiguous by rating each ride's features in words instead of numbers, I'll rate it in a number of stars: +=============+=========+============+ | Words | Numbers | Stars | +=============+=========+============+ | Very Bad | 10 | * | | Bad | 20 | ** | | Poor | 30 | *** | | Okay | 40 | **** | | Good | 45? | ***** | | Quite Good | 50 | ****** | | Very Good | 70 | ******* | | Excellent | 80 | ******** | | Superb | 90 | ********* | | Top Notch | 100 | ********** | +=============+=========+============+ +====================+============+=============+=======+===============+=====+ | Name | Excitement | Reliability | Type | Ride Capacity | Note| +====================+============+=============+=======+===============+=====+ | Monorail | ** | ********** | Track | 4 | | | Bouncy Castle | **** | * | Basic | 8 | | | Snakes and Ladders | **** | * | Basic | 2 | | | Tree House | **** | ******* | Basic | 2 | | | Rubber Tubing | ********* | ****** | Track | 34 | *4 | | Merry-Go-Round | ** | *** | Basic | 8 | | | Water Splash | ********* | **** | Add. | - | | | Planet Rocket | *** | *** | Basic | 19 | | | Maze | ** | ******* | Basic | 25 | *2 | | Roller Coaster | ********** | **** | Track | 8 | | | Clown Acts | ****** | ********* | Basic | 33 | *1 | | Super Spinner | ***** | **** | Basic | 28 | | | Observatory | ****** | ********* | Basic | 38 | | | Parasol Chairs | ***** | *** | Basic | 12 | | | Ghost House | ****** | ******* | Basic | 10 | | | Race Car Ride | ******* | ****** | Track | 33 | | | Big Dipper | ********* | **** | Basic | 8 | | | Plane Flyer | ***** | ******* | Basic | 8 | | | Cowboy Acts | ***** | ********* | Basic | 32 | *1 | | Medieval Acts | ******** | ********* | Basic | 32 | *1 | | Big Wheel | ***** | ******** | Basic | 12 | | | Observation Tower | *** | **** | Basic | 28 | | | Dolphin Acts | ***** | ********* | Basic | 31 | *1 | | Loop The Loop | ********** | **** | Add. | - | | | Space Shuttle | ******** | ******* | Basic | 12 | | | Pirate Boat | ********* | ******* | Basic | 15 | | | Flight Sim | ********* | *** | Basic | 10 | *3 | | Cork Screw | ********* | **** | Add. | - | | | Haunted House | ******** | ******* | Basic | 22 | | +====================+============+=============+=======+===============+=====+ *1 - These are basic rides, but they could be given their own sub-class because they have a particular and unusual shape, are larger than most basic rides, you can't move the exit, and you can only move the entrance to one of two locations. It's also interesting, because you can watch the "acts" going on inside, and these rides seem to take more time than normal ones. *2 - The Maze is larger than most basic rides, being one tile wider. *3 - The Flight Sim is smaller than most basic rides, being one tile slimmer and one tile shorter. This makes this ride very convenient for placing in places where you wouldn't normally be able to fit rides. *4 - Rubber Tubing is, in this version (DS) of Theme Park, the only tracked ride that paths can go through. You cannot build a path over a corner, but you can build it over any straight section of Rubber Tubing. As such, even though Race Car Ride is a better ride, this is easier to place in parks in such a way that will make your guests happy. A full list of shops follows: +====================+=======+========+===============+======+======+ | Name | Type | Type 2 | Addictiveness | Size | Note | +====================+=======+========+===============+======+======+ | Coffee Shop | Food | Drink | --- | 3x3 | *1 | | Whippy Ice Cream | Food | Food | --- | 3x2 | | | Balloon World | Store | --- | --- | ~5x2 | *2 | | Big Time Fries | Food | Food | --- | 3x1 | | | Pokey Cola | Food | Drink | --- | 3x1 | | | Duck Shoot | Game | --- | *** | 3x2 | | | Big Time Burger | Food | Food | --- | 3x1 | | | Novelty Shop | Store | --- | --- | 3x2 | | | Saloon | Food | Drink | --- | 3x2 | | | Gun Shoot | Game | --- | ****** | 3x2 | | | Steak Restaurant | Food | Food | --- | 3x3 | | | Toy Land | Store | --- | --- | 3x1 | | | Tin Can Alley | Game | --- | ***** | 3x2 | | | Coconut Shy | Game | --- | ******* | 3x2 | | | Gift Shop | Store | --- | --- | 3x2 | | | Race Track | Game | --- | ******* | 3x2 | | | Arcade | Game | --- | ********** | 3x3 | *3 | +====================+=======+========+===============+======+======+ *1 - National feature versions of the Coffee Shop, for instance London Taxi Tea, are not as large as the original Coffee Shop. Their size normally prohibits you from placing any of these in front of your park's walls, but you can in countries like the United Kingdom where they are smaller. *2 - Balloon World has an unusual shape, as the front of the shop is 4 tiles wide, while the back is 5 tiles wide. This lets you place something in front of the shop, like a toilet or tree. *3 - In this version of the game (DS), Electronic Arts added their abbreviation to the arcade. A full list of facilities follows: +====================+============+======+ | Name | Type | Note | +====================+============+======+ | Lamp Post | Decorative | | | Birch Tree | Decorative | | | Tree Stump Fence | Wall | | | White Fence | Wall | *1 | | Apple Tree | Decorative | | | Orange Tree | Decorative | | | Castle Wall | Wall | | | Privet Hedge | Wall | | | Tropical Bush | Decorative | | | Rose Bush | Decorative | | | Weeping Tree | Decorative | | | Palm Tree | Decorative | | | Oak Tree | Decorative | | | Spooky Tree | Decorative | | | One Way Signs | Traffic | *2 | | Sign Post | Traffic | *3 | | Outhouse | Toilet | | | Lake | Decorative | *4 | | Boggy Crapper | Toilet | | | Super Toilet | Toilet | | | Center Fountain | Decorative | *5 | +====================+============+======+ *1 - These make nice "tombstones" if placed on just a single square, not linked to any others. Such a usage would be entirely decorative. *2 - To change the direction, tap on the One Way Sign again while it is selected to build. Can only be placed on paths. *3 - To place Sign Posts, you must first tap a ride, shop, or the park's exit. To change the direction, tap on the Sign Post again while it is selected to build. Can only be placed on paths. *4 - When lakes are placed, they take up a 3x3 area. However, they can be added to in less than a 3x3 area, merged with other lakes, and whittled down to smaller sizes. These are also useful if you're feeling a bit more... evil. If your guests are flying off your tracked rides to the end of the park, you can place these along the edges of your park. If a guest lands on a lake when thrown from a ride, they disappear. I guess they drown or something, but they're gone, aren't gonna pollute your map or mess up your stats with their foul mood, and can be replaced by new customers with a fresh wallet filled with money. *5 - These take up a 3x2 area when placed. Unlike Lakes, they cannot be merged, expanded, or whittled down. IV. Goals/Objectives and National Statistics This section is why I started this FAQ. Often, I'd find myself playing and not knowing what I need to do to clear a country, or why the economy was the way it was. The only way to check these things in the game is to sell your park and return to the world map, but in doing so it will automatically save, so you'll lose everything you've worked so hard to build! So I made a listing of every country's statistics as a guide for myself. I'm sure you will find it useful, also. For many countries, their national feature as well as what they unlock are not known, since I started this list when I was most of the way through the game. If you'd like to help me, please see the contact section to E-mail me, and send me what the national features are for each country missing it, as well as what it replaces. That shouldn't be too hard to figure out with the list I provided in the previous section. Please be EXACT with spelling and punctuation. :) I'd also like it if people could tell me what countries unlock what, in the areas I am missing. Well, here's the full list, from West to East on the world map: Country: Canada Park Value to Clear: $250,000 Balance to Clear: $500,000 Difficulty: Medium Short Population: 32,000,000 Medium Population: 100,000,000 Long Population: 200,000,000 Inflation Rate: 6.0% Interest Rate: 7.0% Economy: Medium Tax Free Period Years: 6 Land Tax: 4.0% Weather: Stormy Terrain: Rock, Forest, Lake Cost: $200,000 Unlocks: Water Splash National Feature: Country: U.S.A. Park Value to Clear: $150,000 Balance to Clear: $300,000 Difficulty: Easy Short Population: 300,000,000 Medium Population: 350,000,000 Long Population: 400,000,000 Inflation Rate: 3.2% Interest Rate: 3.5% Economy: Rich Tax Free Period Years: 3 Land Tax: 17.50% Weather: Rain, Sun Terrain: Rock, Forest Cost: $150,000 Unlocks: White Fence National Feature: Empire State Flyer (Plane Flyer) Country: Brazil Park Value to Clear: $550,000 Balance to Clear: $450,000 Difficulty: Very Hard Short Population: 180,000,000 Medium Population: 400,000,000 Long Population: 750,000,000 Inflation Rate: 70.0% Interest Rate: 50.0% Economy: Poor Tax Free Period Years: 5 Land Tax: 3.0% Weather: Rain, Storm Terrain: Forest, River Cost: $350,000 Unlocks: Antarctica National Feature: Country: France Park Value to Clear: $200,000 Balance to Clear: $300,000 Difficulty: Medium Short Population: 60,000,000 Medium Population: 150,000,000 Long Population: 300,000,000 Inflation Rate: 5.0% Interest Rate: 8.0% Economy: Medium Tax Free Period Years: 4 Land Tax: 15.0% Weather: Snow, Rain Terrain: Rock Cost: $200,000 Unlocks: Germany, Canada, China, Egypt, Russia National Feature: French Bakery (Big Time Fries) Country: United Kingdom Park Value to Clear: $100,000 Balance to Clear: $220,000 Difficulty: Easy Short Population: 60,000,000 Medium Population: 150,000,000 Long Population: 300,000,000 Inflation Rate: 4.0% Interest Rate: 4.7% Economy: Rich Tax Free Period Years: 3 Land Tax: 20.0% Weather: Rain, Storm Terrain: Rock, Forest Cost: Free Unlocks: U.S.A., Japan, France National Feature: London Taxi Tea (Coffee Shop) Country: Spain Park Value to Clear: $450,000 Balance to Clear: $700,000 Difficulty: Medium Short Population: 43,000,000 Medium Population: 150,000,000 Long Population: 300,000,000 Inflation Rate: 8.0% Interest Rate: 8.0% Economy: Medium Tax Free Period Years: 4 Land Tax: 15.0% Weather: Snow, Rain Terrain: Rock, River Cost: $280,000 Unlocks: Dolphin Acts National Feature: Spanish Paella (Steak Restaurant) Country: Antarctica Park Value to Clear: $800,000 Balance to Clear: $800,000 Difficulty: Fiendish Short Population: 100,000 Medium Population: 200,000 Long Population: 50,000,000 Inflation Rate: 0.1% Interest Rate: 0.1% Economy: Poor Tax Free Period Years: 15 Land Tax: 0.10% Weather: Snow Terrain: Rock, Lake Cost: $500,000 Unlocks: Super Toilets National Feature: Penguin Cafe (Saloon) Country: South Africa Park Value to Clear: $400,000 Balance to Clear: $600,000 Difficulty: Medium Short Population: 42,000,000 Medium Population: 250,000,000 Long Population: 600,000,000 Inflation Rate: 10.0% Interest Rate: 13.0% Economy: Medium Tax Free Period Years: 4 Land Tax: 9.0% Weather: Sun Terrain: Rock Cost: $300,000 Unlocks: Loop The Loop National Feature: Country: Germany Park Value to Clear: $200,000 Balance to Clear: $600,000 Difficulty: Easy Short Population: 82,000,000 Medium Population: 150,000,000 Long Population: 300,000,000 Inflation Rate: 6.0% Interest Rate: 4.0% Economy: Rich Tax Free Period Years: 3 Land Tax: 20.0% Weather: Snow Terrain: Rock, River Cost: $200,000 Unlocks: Medieval Acts National Feature: Danke Frankfurt (Big Time Burger) Country: Egypt Park Value to Clear: $250,000 Balance to Clear: $550,000 Difficulty: Medium Short Population: 76,000,000 Medium Population: 280,000,000 Long Population: 500,000,000 Inflation Rate: 15.0% Interest Rate: 17.5% Economy: Medium Tax Free Period Years: 3 Land Tax: 7.50% Weather: Sun Terrain: Rock, River Cost: $200,000 Unlocks: Lamp Post National Feature: Country: Italy Park Value to Clear: $450,000 Balance to Clear: $700,000 Difficulty: Medium Short Population: 58,000,000 Medium Population: 150,000,000 Long Population: 300,000,000 Inflation Rate: 7.0% Interest Rate: 8.0% Economy: Medium Tax Free Period Years: 4 Land Tax: 17.0% Weather: Snow Terrain: Rock, River Cost: $280,000 Unlocks: Flight Sim National Feature: Pizza Coliseum (Big Time Burger) Country: Russia Park Value to Clear: $280,000 Balance to Clear: $300,000 Difficulty: Hard Short Population: 140,000,000 Medium Population: 250,000,000 Long Population: 800,000,000 Inflation Rate: 40.0% Interest Rate: 50.0% Economy: Poor Tax Free Period Years: 2 Land Tax: 5.0% Weather: Snow Terrain: Forest, River Cost: $300,000 Unlocks: Australia, Italy, South Africa, Spain, India, Brazil National Feature: Country: India Park Value to Clear: $480,000 Balance to Clear: $400,000 Difficulty: Hard Short Population: 1,000,000,000 Medium Population: 1,200,000,000 Long Population: 2,000,000,000 Inflation Rate: 50.0% Interest Rate: 65.0% Economy: Poor Tax Free Period Years: 5 Land Tax: 2.50% Weather: Sun, Storm Terrain: River Cost: $200,000 Unlocks: Center Fountain National Feature: Maharaja Curry (Big Time Fries) Country: China Park Value to Clear: $250,000 Balance to Clear: $600,000 Difficulty: Medium Short Population: 1,200,000,000 Medium Population: 1,500,000,000 Long Population: 2,000,000,000 Inflation Rate: 10.0% Interest Rate: 10.0% Economy: Medium Tax Free Period Years: 2 Land Tax: 6.50% Weather: Rain, Sun Terrain: River Cost: $220,000 Unlocks: National Feature: Country: Japan Park Value to Clear: $150,000 Balance to Clear: $280,000 Difficulty: Easy Short Population: 120,000,000 Medium Population: 300,000,000 Long Population: 750,000,000 Inflation Rate: 1.0% Interest Rate: 1.0% Economy: Rich Tax Free Period Years: 3 Land Tax: 40.0% Weather: Rain, Sun Terrain: Rock, River Cost: $140,000 Unlocks: Castle Wall National Feature: Bouncy Castle-J (Bouncy Castle) Country: Australia Park Value to Clear: $450,000 Balance to Clear: $500,000 Difficulty: Medium Short Population: 30,000,000 Medium Population: 50,000,000 Long Population: 300,000,000 Inflation Rate: 6.0% Interest Rate: 7.5% Economy: Medium Tax Free Period Years: 4 Land Tax: 10.0% Weather: Sun Terrain: Rock Cost: $300,000 Unlocks: Cork Screw National Feature: V. Research and Development Research and development is a feature available in the sim and full versions of the game. It allows you to spend money on a monthly basis to unlock new rides, shops, and facilitoes for use. It will also allow you to make your bus larger and able to carry more people, improve staff training, and improve your rides. In the full version of the game, I believe you can also research a larger warehouse to store your shop supplies. In each area, you can put anywhere between $0 and $9,999 into development for your monthly spending. And of course you can change the rates at any time. Progress in each area is measured in levels and demarkated by stars. You can have anywhere between 0 and 24 stars in each area. In this version of the game (DS), even if you research an area completely, unless you have unlocked a particular feature by playing through its country, you will not be able to use it. Each area of research also has a progress bar. For types of research that give you new features, eg. rides, shops, and facilities, the bar will be red and will indicate your progress to the next feature. Once you've finished research, the bar will appear empty. For types of research that are improvements on existing features, the bar will be blue and will indicate your total progress in the area. Research and development does not carry over from one park to another. It's worth noting both here and in the strategy portion of the game, that there exists a bug in this version of the game (DS) as well as the original PC version if I remember correctly, where for staff training and ride improvements if you put a large amount of money into research and development in those areas, you'll skip over large areas of progress. I suppose you basically can only get one improvement in each area per month, so if you put in enough money for 5 improvements, you'll only get one of them and the other 4 are lost until your next theme park. So basically, take your staff training and ride improvements research very slowly. I usually do about $300 into each per month, although even that might be a bit too much at the start as I have never maxed out each ride's improvements. It appears that ride improvements cap at version 9.0, while staff training caps at version 5.4. 5.4 might seem low, but it is actually rediculously good. In fact, it makes it hard to select your handymen sometimes because they move so fast. From beginning to end, you'll put $500,000 into ride improvements to get from level 0 to level 24. I believe it's around $400,000 for staff improvements, but I could be wrong. I'm not sure about the other areas of research right now. Most players will probably never max out either their ride improvement or staff training levels during any particular country, and will only do so if they want to make the absolute best park possible. A good strategy for research and development on anything but your first park is to save up a lot of money from the previous park ($2,500,000 or more just to be safe), then in the first few years at your next park, don't do anything except research. Put $999,999 into every field except staff training and ride improvements. Put $299 into staff training, and $299 or *less* into ride improvements. When, after many decades, $299 or less isn't enough money to get you a ride improvement each month, start putting in a tiny bit more money until you do get it, if you want them to come at the once-a-month rate. I'll discuss why it is best to spend the first years in research in the strategy section. VI. Time, Taxes, and Money Time is on your side in this game, if you're prepared. Every country, except Antarctica, has some kind of inflation on their money. In real life, inflation is a bad thing, and to my understanding a side-effect of interest. Basically, inflation means that over time, money becomes worth less and less. So a dollar this year may get you a basic product or service that you'll need ten dollars for in 50 years. It also means that people will have more money, because each dollar is worth less. In this game though, all your goals are in set dollar amounts. And each ride, shop, facility, and hired staff member will always cost you the same amount of money. The only things that will end up costing you more money over time are employment wages, shop supply distributor prices, and taxes. You can buy out your land on the 12th year you're there to eliminate your taxes, and in my strategies section you'll learn how to negotiate well with your staff and distributors so that you don't get more money from you. So over time, people in your park will start carrying around more money, but for you, everything will stay the same price. That means you can take more money from your guests and make a larger profit every single year. The interest rate and inflation rate in Antarctica are only 0.1%, or 1/1000. The way the game calculates its math however, means that inflation never really affects you at all here. So in Antarctica, you can't rely on this strategy, although if you come into the "country" with enough money you won't need to. I may get back to this section in the future and try to find out how taxes are calculated. VII. Strategies 1) The biggest, most important strategy for making your theme park a success is to use a cyclical/circular/oval park design. If you make your park a grid like the streets of a city, you have no control over where people go, and you can't predict what people will do. When they get off your huge, awesome roller coaster happy as can be, will they be passing by your Gift Shop where they'll be willing to spend $200, or your Balloon World where they will only spend $12? Will people in your park get to the Coffee Shop and speed up as their first stop in your park, speeding up how fast they get through it and thus replaced by another guest with a fresh wallet faster, or as their last stop where its affect is worthless? On their way into your park, guests should see signs to the first big ride in your park no matter which side they come in. And every guest in the park should ride that ride, so maybe you should even have two or even three or four of them, depending on what it is. That said, your first ride should NOT be your Roller Coaster, because unfortunately it doesn't go through guests fast enough that all your guests can go on it as their first ride, you can only have one of them in this version of the game, and it will interupt your cyclical design because nothing can be built under its tracks in this version of the game. If you want your first ride to be a long tracked ride that can get people in an incredibly good mood, I suggest the Rubber Tubing. If you make it long enough, it's almost as good as a Roller Coaster, and you can build over their tracks so it won't interupt your cycle. They hold plenty of guests, but if you're making it long, you should have two of them right in a row. If you're going for a basic ride, like a Haunted House, you'll need more than 2 since they don't hold quite as many people. If not everybody gets on your first ride, when they finish the cycle/circle/oval and are heading toward the exit, they'll see the signs for that ride and head straight there, starting the cycle again. They may wander around your park after that, unable or unwilling to find the exit even though they're broke and you're not getting any money from them, and nobody else can replace them until they leave. In your cycle/circle/oval, make sure you put expensive shops after your best rides, and less expensive shops after the average rides. I'd skip out on the bad rides like the Tree House or Merry-Go-Round altogether. Just don't put them in, they're a waste of everybody's time and your money. Put the gift shop after your Roller Coaster or Big Dipper, put your Toy Shop after the other or Race Car Ride. 2) Here's the trick to making every game irresistable to your guests. Set the win percentage to be pretty high. Anywhere from 15% on up should be enough. Then, set either the cost of the prize down and/or the cost to play up. Do both if it suits you. I wouldn't set the win percentage to 100% in case they drop by again, but if you're sure they won't hit it again on your cycle and you're feeling generous (you're paying for those gifts, you know), go ahead. A good example would be if you set the prize to $400, set the price to play to $250 for a 33% chance of winning. On a 50% chance of winning, set the cost to play to $500, and the prize to $400. On average in two games in the previous example, you'll make $600. And everyone who walks by will play if they can. Also, I *think* people who win at these games might become happier, but I don't know for sure. Obviously when they win, you can see them jumping up in excitement, but I don't know if that actually affects their happiness. 3) Don't make EVERY game really expensive! If a guest as $1450, and all your games cost $500, they'll play two games and won't be able to play any more. They'll have $450 they can't use. Make a series of games with varying prices and chances of winning. If you do this, you'll see guests leaving with less than $20 sometimes. Mission accomplished! 4) Save up a lot of money! Your money does carry over permanently, so make use of it by staying at your park once you build a pretty successful one. I'd save up at *least* $3,000,000. Toward the end I had my cache at $13,500,000. Having this safety net lets you spend your first years conducting research and development, which is crucial to starting off on the right food. If you build a park the "normal way," starting with the bad rides and replacing them with good ones, you'll have a bad synergy between your shops and rides. People will get off the Haunted House you replaced your Tree House with thrilled, only to spend $12 at Balloon World instead of $80 at Toy Land. You end up having to tear down every single ride and shop you've built, wasting lots of money. You'll even have to redo the paths. It's a lot less work if you have every ride and shop to work with from the very beginning. This also gives the economy a chance to inflate its money, meaning that when you start out people will have more money. Another advantage to saving your money is that you can build big from the get-go, again avoiding future restructuring and letting you have a clear vision of what you want to do with your park. 5) Countries with high inflation rates will KILL you in taxes. Make sure you're ready for it with a lot of money saved up. It'll also cost a lot of money to buy your land, but if you don't, it'll only get worse. ALWAYS buy your land at the first opportunity, because inflation means taxes can increase exponentially. 6) I mentioned this in the Research and Development section, but do not put any more than ~$300 into staff training and ride improvements. There's a bug in the game that will cause you to skip over improvements. And it seems to me to always skip over the most important improvements, such as Handymen and Mechanics. For ride improvements, it might be a good idea to put even less money into development each month than $300. The best rate of research for these areas because of the bug is a rate which delivers you with 1 improvement per month. 7) Entertainers are worthless in this version of the game, except for long, slow lines. Don't put them in your paths or on the grass. People don't stand still in this game unless they're in line, and that's the only way entertainers can entertain them! And for long lines, I suggest putting entertainers toward the front, rather than the back. That's for two reasons. First of all, entertainers do not listen to you. If you're not kept busy, they'll run to the front of the park or wander around in circles, or do some other stupid stuff. The front of the line has people in it more often than the back of the line, so they'll be less likely to wander off there. Second, at the back of the line, people haven't been in line long and aren't bored and frustrated yet. When they are toward the front, they're starting to feel a bit mad because they've been waiting so long. That's when they need to be entertained. 8) Another bug in the game! Don't put paths attaching to the exit (the left side of the entrance/exit) on ground tracked rides, aka the Rubber Tubing and Race Car Ride. For some reason, guests love to walk right up to the exit over and over and over, getting stuck very often, and getting upset. If you don't put a path there, and only put the path leading to the next square, people will not get stuck, and the people walking out of the ride won't have much of a problem getting back to the path. If for instance, you want them to go down and for some reason they go left, just put a wall or part of the track to the left of them there. 9)The area of your park next to where people line up to get back on the bus, and in front of your walls is not wasted space. You can place many shops there, and there is one ride you can place there as well: the Flight Sim. You don't get it until much later, but it's a good ride, although it starts out with a small capacity and it breaks down somewhat frequently. Keep the lines small and put it at the end of your new shopping strip. Until your capacity on the ride is upgraded, you might want to speed the ride up slightly to make people more satisfied with the ride and get people in and out of it faster. In the original PC version of the game you could place Rubber Tubing and the Race Car Ride here as well, since you could turn their entrance/exit sideways. 10) Don't speed up the rides too much. I never speed any of my rides up with exception to the one mentioned in the previous strategy. It's really not worth it. Rides need maintainance enough as it is, and every time you speed up the ride, that aspect gets even worse. If rides are breaking down faster, there's a larger chance they'll blow up. Making some guests unhappy with a blown up ride is not such a big deal; the immovable rubble left behind by a blown up ride is. Also, sped-up rides attract biker gangs. And can cause your guests to throw up more often. 11) On levels with complex rubble, like Antarctica, Spain, and Italy, people can get thrown off rides to the edge of the map, where they'll try to walk their way back. It's possible for these guests to walk right into a groove in the rubble and get stuck there. To keep this from happening, fill in those grooves with walls. 12) I mentioned this earlier in the facilities list, but you can actually "get rid" of people who fly off tracked rides by lining the inside of your park walls with water. They just disappear instead of getting upset, trying to walk back, taking forever, and getting potentially stuck. This way, they get replaced by someone on the next bus immediately and their sour attitude doesn't affect your park's stats. A cold thing to do for sure, but for if you want to put a positive spin on it, they're landing in water instead of on the ground after a huge fall. If this were real life, you just saved them. 13) What if you need to increase your park's value to beat a country, but you also want to make money after you win? If you have a good cycle that can't really be expanded upon without ruining your money-making ability, but still need new rides and shops to increase your park's value, just start a new area of your park completely unconnected to the rest of the park, and place them there. I'd even suggest not to connect the rides and shops with paths unless you surround the whole thing with a wall, just in case a guest thrown off a ride wanders into that wonderland and starts treating it as their own personal playground. Also they'd get stuck there and you'd have to delete the paths under their feet to get them to get back toward the entrance if this happened anyway. 14) If someone gets stuck somewhere in your park, draw a path under them to get them walking again, then delete it once they're headed in the right direction. 15) Yes, motorcycle gang members DO have icons that appear on th emaps. There are four of them from what I've seen. One is a guy in the white shirt wearing the blue overalls and bandana. Another is guy with a black jacket, green shirt, red hair or hat, and blue jeans. Another is what APPEARS to be a woman with very large, blonde hair and ear rings, wearing a gawdy red dress and blue
slippers.. The last as far as I know is a guy with a blue shirt, purple pants
and jacket, a black hat, and brown hair with sideburns. Typically, one or two
bike gang members will get off into your park per visit, up to a maximum of 5.
Your Guards won't do anything about them until they do something bad to a
guest or try to get on a ride, but they will deter bike gang members from
coming in the first place. Bike gang members do not ride rides, although they
will try to get in line once, probably to cause trouble. You cannot select bike
gang members to see what they're thinking, and they don't have thought bubbles.
Also, they don't pay to get into the park.
16) Oddly, there is another way you can arrange your entrance in basic rides.
When placing the entrance, instead of selecting where it goes, just accept
where it is and the entrance will actually be on the ride, saving you space but
looking stupid and not giving you an option of on what side to place the it.
17) Make your ride exits lead guests as close as possible to the next area of
interest for them, reducing their walking time for your benefit and theirs.
You can only really do this in a cyclical/circular/oval park because in a grid
park you don't know where they've been or need to go.
18) I've mentioned it before, but placing Sign Posts and/or One-Way Signs is
crucial to controlling traffic. But make sure you know how to use them.
19) Don't make your walkways too wide. It's harder on Handymen to keep them
clean and makes traffic more difficult to control.
20) There's no point setting a Handyman to mow the lawn. In fact, in this
version of the game (DS), I don't think there is even an animation for them
mowing the lawn or different grass tiles for how long the grass is. Honestly
for the best, though. It was a pain and not worthwhile in any way.
21) A few tips for tracked rides. Longer tracks for tracked rides means
happier guests. They literally get happy while they're on the track. However,
the longer it is, the longer other guests have to wait to get on. So if you
have a tracked ride you're proud of, make another one with an entrance closeby!
This is easier with Rubber Tubing because you can build paths over the track,
but it's possible with the Race Car Ride also. Guests can get thrown off even
Rubber Tubing and Race Track Rides very easily, without increase the ride's
speed. After some study, I discovered this happens on straightaways in both
cases. To avoid this, build your tracks with as many turns as possible. This
is exactly the opposite of what you are going to want to do with the Roller
Coaster and Big Dipper.
Now... you can put multiple entrances/exits on a single track for either of
those rides, unlike Roller Coasters, Big Dippers, and Monorails (you could in
the original PC version). This doesn't mean you should take advantage of that
fact. The way tracked rides work in this game is it keeps track of where the
innertubes/cars actually are located along the track. So if a car starts at one
entrance/exit and goes to another one, it will then be located at that
entrance/exit. Eventually, all of the cars will be at the second entrance/exit.
There's a huge problem with this, because guests don't like getting on the same
type or ride twice. So eventually, the ride will stop being used because at the
location where all the cars are, guests won't want to get on the ride. So the
ride ends up not being used at all and is just a big waste of space. In one of
my parks, I had set it up so that all guests would get on one of either two
Rubber Tubings or two Race Car Rides, go to the back of the park to an area cut
off from the front, then take the other ride back. Basically, I was trying to
make a better and just plain functional monorail system, but due to the way it
tracks the innertubes/cars, it's not practical.
22) Monorails are useless. In the original PC version, you could place multiple
entrances/exits for all tracked rides, including the Monorail. So I assume each
entrance/exit got its own set of cars and you could move people around the park
with a series of monorails. I didn't use it much. Since you can't do that in
this version of the game, there's no point to ever buying them since they'll
never make a guest happy. They look kinda cool, though.
23) For Roller Coasters and Big Dippers, take it easy. You're trying to make
guests happy, and unfortunately, that will be impossible if they all get thrown
off their rides. Never, ever, ever make a sharp 180 degree turn on either of
these rides. Try to follow each 90 degree turn with at least 4 or 5 tiles until
its next turn. Better yet, before each turn, increase the elevation over what
was the previous maximum. This will slow the cars down so the turns will be
safer. However, this has two side-effects: First of all, it limits the number
of turns you can make in your track because the height of the track is
limited. Second, it makes it so you can't start your track out with a large
climb like in most roller coasters you'd see in the world. But it's important,
because unlike the real laws of physics, roller coaster cars in Theme Park
gain speed as they move through their track, regardless of whether they
actually chains to increase their potential energy. So the more drops in your
track, the faster your cars will go, increasing the danger and meaning my
suggestions are even more important. Of course, it's important to reduce the
overall number of turns in the track, which isn't as fun. :-/ One thing to
keep in mind is if you car isn't going fast, it won't make it through a
Loop The Loop or Cork Screw, and will go backwards toward the entrance. I
guess if you put another one behind the cars before they got back to the
entrance, you could get them stuck there forever.
24) Want to beat the game or unlock features fast? After you save up a ton of
money with a successful park, just place a bunch of rides and shops densely
in your park without opening it or adding any lines or paths or anything. This
will bring up your park's value, and you already have a huge balance, so at the
start of the next year, you'll probably have met the requirements. Rinse and
repeat. You'll even get some of your money back from selling the park, and you
don't have to spend any money on research and development. I was tempted to do
this sometimes...
VIII. Frequently Asked Questions (or what I expect to be)
1) No, Russia isn't snowy. Canada isn't snowy. Not even Antarctica is snowy.
Sure it snows in those places more often, but the ground is still grass. Kinda
lame. Especially considering Antarctica is basically this game's "boss."
2) What's the ending like? Once you complete your last country (usually
Antarctica) and you sell your park to return to the map screen, you simple get
a picture of the four advisors that says "Thank you for playing!" or something
to that effect. That's it. No special unlocks, no credits, no nothing. And it
doesn't even let you stay on the screen for long. Pretty pathetic. Given the
number of cutscenes in the original PC version, I kinda doubt it had such a
lame ending too, but it might have.
IX. Game Version Differences
I have the original PC version of the game and the DS version. As a kid, I
played Theme Park a lot, but never got good enough to beat it. That's part of
the reason why I bought it on DS, because I wanted to finally beat the game I
hadn't been able to before, and because it seemed like it'd be the best version
of the game so far. What do I think now that I've played and beaten the DS
version? I think the art team did a pretty good job, adding a new national
theme for every single country. That helped give me the incentive to actually
play through all these different challenges, which are really very similar. But
I think the programmers were downright lazy, putting in only a local wireless
connection for the game when they knew very few people would be able to use it
since the game wouldn't be popular enough. They also left lots of old bugs in
the game and made even more! And a number of features were taken out
unnecessarily. Here's a list of differences I noticed between the two versions:
1) You can't rename anything. In the original, you could rename not just your
park, but all the rides and shops *individually*, and the name you wrote would
show up on their marqees. You can name your park in this version, but you don't
see the name in the game.
2) Guests don't hold any items. In the original PC version, guests could hold
one balloon to represent a toy from each shop. This helped you keep track of
which guests are buying what, and where. Entertainers would also hand out
umbrellas to guests when it was raining, giving them another much-needed
function. You can still see part of that in the current version of the game, as
when entertainers have no guests to entertain, they'll move to the front of the
theme park (where they could hand out umbrellas if needed). Of cousre now, that
action is completely pointless.
3) You can't rotate tracked ride entrances in the DS version. This is a big
deal. It makes it very difficult to place certain tracked rides in the park,
especially with the next difference. It also makes it impossible to place
tracked rides in front of your park walls like you could in the original.
4) You can't build under Roller Coaster or Big Dipper tracks. In the PC
version of the game, you could. This really reduces your construction options.
5) Smaller height limit on the Roller Coaster and Big Dipper. On the original
PC version, you could make it rediculously high. It really interfered with
visibility, but fortunately the game would cut off certan unimportant parts
that were blocking your vision. But you could make them rediculously tall,
and there were yearly awards for doing so. It also introduced another
difference between the Roller Coaster and Big Dipper, as the Big Dipper could
not reach as high as because it was made of wood.
6) You can't build multiple Monorails, Roller Coasters, or Big Dippers in the
DS version of the game. This is hugely disappointing because it effectively
makes the Monorail worthless. It also decreases your options on how to build
a single Roller Coaster or Big Dipper - as in whether it has multiple
entrances/exits or not - although this probably wouldn't not be a viable
strategy anyway, seeing as it's not possible with the Rubber Tubing and Race
Car Ride.
7) The DS version only has one type of park wall. The original PC version had
at least two kinds, including one that looked like a castle. It's possible that
Antarctica was snowy, but I don't know for sure.
8) In the original PC version of the game, you could "ride" many of the rides.
Basically all it was was a cutscene that played for many rides, but it was
really a cool feature when the game originally came out. Of course, since they
were pre-rendered cutscenes, they wouldn't match your own tracked rides.
9) Different introduction cutscenes.
10) In the original PC version, there was a bug/cheat/exploit that allowed you
to make the ground underneath shops available for use again, allowing you to
place many shops much closer together.
11) Handymen don't mow the lawn in the DS version of the game, and the grass
does not grow. Although this is probably for the best, as it was an annoying
and impractical feature in the original version.
12) Different layout and interfaces of course, including a different setup for
the research and development screen.
X. FAQ Versions
1.01 - 7-27-2009
- Added Germany, Canada, South Africa, China, Egypt, U.S.A., Japan, France,
and Russia's country unlocks thanks to Prism Twine's help.
- Corrected Australia's unlock from Big Dipper to Corkscrew thanks to Prism
Twine's help. If anyone knows what unlocks the Big Dipper, please contact me.
- Corrected a few minor spelling/wording mistakes.
- Added this section, "FAQ Versions" and renamed "Version Differences" to
"Game Version Differences" for clarification purposes. Adding this section
moved "Contact" and "Credits and Disclaimer" down the section number list.
1.00 - 2-16-2009
- Uploaded original FAQ.
XI. Contact
Because of the persistence of online data mining bots, I am going to break up
my E-mail address into multiple pieces so that I don't get additional spam. I'm
pretty sure you'll be able to figure it out. Oh, my first name is Tony, if you
want to address me by my real name, but Knightcrawler or KC works too. "YOU!"
should do adequately as well.
K crawl @
night 2 yahoo.com
er
XII. Credits and Disclaimer
- "Theme Park (video game)." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 16th Feb. 2009
.
- HLW10 on GameFAQs for giving me the proper spelling of "London Taxi Tea."
- Prism Twine sent me country unlocks to add to my country list on July 1st. I
added them on July 27th for my 1.01 update. Yes, I'm lazy and/or busy. Mostly
lazy. Thank you for the help, Prism Twine!
Theme Park was originally created by Bullfrog Productions, which is now owned
by Electronic Arts. Therefore they own full rights to the game, and I don't
own squat of it. This FAQ is not officially recognized by Electronic Arts in
any way and any opinions expressed within the article are the author's (me),
not EA's.