• Start building & managing your zoo right from the start -- plan out your exhibits and design a layout
• Do your very best to please customers and the animals
• Inhabit your zoo with the right animals to draw in the big crowds
• Over 200 animals to exhibit, plus all kinds of new & interesting plant life to help make your zoo more exotic
• Manage your zoo wisely -- meet the needs of both the people and the animals without losing all your money

Zoo Tycoon puts your ability to design and market your ideas to the test -- see if you can build a world-famous zoo! If you design & manage well, the lions, tigers and bears will be great performers. Plan poorly, and they'll start attacking humans!

Everybody likes the zoo. And why not? Casual walks, exotic animals, and fried foods are good fun. Managing a zoo of your very own is even better. Zoo Tycoon challenges you to build a zoo one path tile, one iron-reinforced fence, and one animal at a time. Zoo Tycoon bears more than just a title similarity to Roller Coaster Tycoon: it appears to be based on the same basic game engine. Building pens and paths, decorating, locating buildings, managing your staff, even the way your patrons look and how you tweak pricing are all extremely similar to the fun and intuitive Roller Coaster Tycoon. The gameplay consists of a series of inventive scenarios--sometimes building a zoo from scratch, other times taking over a failing or failed zoo and bringing it back from the brink.

Specifically, you've got to build pens and habitats with an eye toward the needs of each animal species. For example, putting bears in a savannah setting results in depressed, possibly sick, bears. You also have to tend to your human animals by locating gift shops, restaurants, drink stands, and bathrooms. Then you've got to adopt animals and hire zookeepers to tend your creatures. All of this costs money, but cutting corners can result in irate customers and unhappy animals. Unhappy animals bore people, and worse they make it difficult to adopt more exotic and finicky creatures, like pandas. Happy and well-fed animals will cavort and play, making your guests very happy. And happy guests results in more money for you to improve your zoo.

It's a balancing act keeping all the animals, keepers, and little wandering people happy, but the game is also a decorator sim. You've got to beautify your park, and it's easy to forget the specific scenario objectives and lose yourself in building the ultimate zoo. If you tire of the objectives entirely, you can delete some of your fences and watch the animals run amok on your guests (sometimes, through negligence, they can break free on their own). The carnivores grab, pin, and fling your guests (no blood, and no killing here), which lowers your zoo rating and dissuades people from visiting for a while. Still, it's great fun to watch. --Bob Andrews

Pros:

• Plays like Roller Coaster Tycoon
• Addictive and fun

• Plays, maybe, too much like Roller Coaster Tycoon
• Simple graphics

This place is a real zoo--and you're in charge! Go wild running the most fun and beautiful zoo you can imagine. Care for unpredictable and untamed animals (and those are just the guests!). Plan wisely, because if the animals don't like their food, environment, or handling, they interact poorly with visitors, and unhappy guests means fewer dollars. Play smart and keep everyone and everything happy, and you'll be a zoo tycoon.

So I was playing this game the other day, and it prompted me to write a review for those who might not have been fortunate enough to play it yet. Basically, the game is exactly what you'd expect... it's a sim/strategy type game where you take the role of a zoo keeper, and build your ideal zoo. With dozens of animals, from African hunting dogs to saltwater crocodiles to Asian black bears, this game should appeal to any wildlife enthusiast. The whole goal of the game is to make sure your animals, and guests, are happy. The former is achieved by placing them in a suitable environment, the later by building animal house (like 'reptile houses,' 'primate houses,' etc), resturants, gift stores and other attractions. You can choose several scenarios, from free form games to pre-made games that require you to achieve certain, increasingly challenging, goals. Over all, a very cool game, and one you can get cheaply too. But it will still provide hours of enjoyment. Go for it!

My 8 yr. old son and myself are hooked! Design habitats, zoo layout, organize your staff, and make those donors happy! Keep the customers satisfied...that means the animals! Ornery giraffes and chippy chimps are definitely a no-no! PS - don't let that jaguar eat an antelope either, oh no!

IF YOU HAVE A KID THAT IS CREATIVE AND IS WILLING TO SPEND SOME TO ALOT OF TIME CREATING THIS ZOO IT IS EXCELLENT! MY 9 AND 12 YEAR OLD LOVE IT. WE LOVE THE FLYING WITCH-SANTA ETC AT THE HOLIDAYS. GREAT FUN WHEN THE ANIMALS ESCAPE. EVEN THE ADULTS CAN'T HELP BUT LAUGH.

Zoo Tycoon is a lot of fun. I like the challenge of making the animals happy. It was hard to learn at first, but now I've got the hang of it. Leveling the ground is hard. The zoom function is limited. But overall I like it!

this game is so fun and i can do what ever i want in the zoo!!!