Info about Planet Coaster 2: Official game description: Deluxe Edition ============== Purchase the Deluxe Edition of Planet Coaster 2 now to receive:  ---------------------------------------------------------------- * The Planet Coaster 2: Vintage Funfair Ride Pack, containing a whopping ten vintage rides from across the ages.  About the Game ============== Create a splash with Planet Coaster 2 - sequel to the world’s best coaster park simulator!   Reach new heights of creativity, management, and sharing as you construct the theme parks of your dreams combining epic water rides and coasters to delight and thrill your park guests.  Dive in now!  Expand your imagination: ------------------------ Enhanced and improved building and pathing tools let you create spectacular, true-to-life theme parks, complete with sprawling plazas. Make your mark on the world as you shape terrain and populate your park with stunning swimming pools and thrilling rides. It’s never been easier to bring your dream park to life.   Next-level customisation: ------------------------- Embark on the coaster park experience of a lifetime as you push the boundaries of creativity like never before!  Unleash your imagination as you build the most awe-inspiring themed creations with unparalleled customisation tools! For the first time, intuitively add scalable scenery and objects to every ride to elevate your park and give your guests a day to remember.  Combine epic water and coaster rides: ------------------------------------- Create the ultimate experience for your thrill-seeking guests using piece-by-piece construction. Build a vibrant array of exhilarating rollercoasters and jaw-dropping thrill rides. Design a seamlessly interconnected park paradise with glistening swimming pools and twisting water flumes.    Create unforgettable experiences: --------------------------------- Surprise and amaze as you bring the dramatic flair of real-world theme parks to your guests with the brand-new event sequencer tool, while sophisticated global illumination lighting brings the theme park experience to your home with stunning visuals and striking authenticity.  Find the secret to success: --------------------------- Balance thrilling your guests with managing your budget - populate your park with amazing efficiently powered attractions and the right amenities to boost your rating and become a theme park master.  Take care: ---------- Provide for your guests’ health, well-being, and happiness so your park can thrive. With all-new waterparks comes the need for shade, sunscreen, lifeguards, changing rooms, and more to ensure everyone has their best day both in and out of the pool.  Satisfaction guaranteed: ------------------------ Understanding the wants and needs of your guests has never been easier! The new ‘heat maps’ feature lets you understand the wider park’s needs at a glance before diving deeper into the details -simply select any guest to see how they and their immediate group are enjoying your theme park.   Create together: ---------------- Unleash your collective creativity in Sandbox Mode. Take turns to work on building a park with players around the world using a shared cross-platform save!  Play together: -------------- For the first time ever, collaborate with friends in Franchise Mode to create the best theme park empire and compete with others to reach the top of worldwide leaderboards!  Visit together: --------------- Soak up the fun and get up close and personal, as you experience other players theme park creations first hand - explore their worlds in first person as a park guest!  Share creations: ---------------- Share anything and everything! Upload coasters, rides, or even full theme parks for other players, and download and delight in other’s creations. All are easily accessible from the cross-platform Frontier Workshop both in-game and online. Release date: 6 Nov, 2024 Categories: Construction Simulation, Management Simulation, Customization, Sandbox Creation, Cooperative Multiplayer, Competitive Multiplayer, Custom Asset Support, Exploration - Hardware Profile: No data Feature extractions: - Community Price: No data - Playtime Metrics: No data - Time-to-fun: No data - Player Archetypes: No data Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category. Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews. What players like: - Significant improvements via updates (weight 0.84): The game has received numerous updates that have significantly improved graphics, UI/UX, stability, and overall gameplay. Many reviewers highlight that the game is now in a much better state than at launch, with many bugs fixed and new features added based on player feedback. These improvements address initial criticisms and make the game more enjoyable. - Worthy successor; retains charm (weight 0.56): Reviewers consistently praise the game as a worthy successor to previous titles, particularly Planet Coaster 1 and Rollercoaster Tycoon. It retains the charm of the originals while introducing new features and improvements. Many find it more approachable and customizable, making it a standout in the theme park simulation genre. - Water parks are a highlight (weight 0.3): The addition of water parks, including pools and slides, is a well-received feature that enhances the game's variety and creative possibilities. Reviewers enjoy building and customizing these aquatic attractions, noting the improved water physics and guest animations. This addition makes the game feel more complete and offers a refreshing change from traditional theme park building. - Improved pathing tool; more flexible (weight 0.26): The new pathing tool is a major highlight, offering increased flexibility and creative freedom in designing plazas and paths. While it may have a learning curve, reviewers find it to be a significant upgrade over previous systems, allowing for more realistic and customizable park layouts. - Developers responsive to feedback (weight 0.21): Frontier Developments is actively listening to community feedback and releasing frequent updates to improve the game. Reviewers appreciate the developer's commitment to addressing issues, adding new features, and providing free content. This responsiveness inspires confidence in the game's future development. - Generally fun and immersive (weight 0.2): Many reviewers express general enjoyment and enthusiasm for the game, highlighting its potential and immersive qualities. However, these points lack specific details and actionable feedback, reducing their overall importance. - Scaling objects enhances creativity (weight 0.19): The ability to scale and customize scenery pieces is a game-changer, allowing for greater creative freedom and detailed park designs. Reviewers appreciate the flexibility this feature provides, enabling them to create unique and immersive environments. The building tools are more refined, making it easier to align and place objects. - Engaging management and creativity (weight 0.17): The game offers a blend of creativity and engaging management aspects, making it enjoyable for both casual and hardcore players. Reviewers appreciate the intuitive user interface and the ability to share creations with the community. The campaign mode is well-made and provides a good introduction to the game's mechanics. - Improved and customizable coaster-builder (weight 0.14): The game features an improved coaster builder with new coaster types, customization options, and smoother creation tools. Reviewers appreciate the ability to create more realistic and visually appealing coasters, with features like customizable cars and track switches adding to the creative possibilities. - Attach scenery to rides (weight 0.08): The ability to attach scenery to rides and coaster trains is a valuable addition, enhancing customization and visual appeal. Reviewers appreciate the creative possibilities this feature unlocks, allowing for more unique and immersive park designs. Common complaints: - Buggy, incomplete, unpolished launch (weight 0.83): The game's initial release was plagued with bugs, missing features, and a clunky UI, leading to an unplayable experience. Many reviewers felt it resembled an early-access title and criticized the release of paid DLC before addressing core issues. This negatively impacted player experience and led to comparisons with other poorly launched titles. Some reviewers mentioned the game felt like a console port, which negatively impacted the PC experience. - Lacking content, aggressive DLC strategy (weight 0.36): Reviewers feel the game is lacking in content compared to its predecessor, with missing themes, decorations, and features. There's concern that content is being held back for paid DLC, especially since some DLC includes content from the first game. This perceived 'cash grab' approach frustrates players who expected a more complete experience at launch. - Clunky, unintuitive, console-focused UI (weight 0.29): The UI/UX is widely criticized for being clunky, unintuitive, and console-focused, requiring excessive clicks for basic actions. Reviewers express frustration with nested menus, lack of tooltips, and a general step backward from previous games in the series. This makes simple tasks tedious and hinders the overall player experience. - Downgrade from original Planet Coaster (weight 0.25): Many reviewers feel the game is a downgrade from the original Planet Coaster, citing missing features, worse AI, and a lack of polish. Some feel it doesn't offer enough new content to justify being a full sequel. The game also lacks themes and features like hotels and security present in the first Planet Coaster. - Unrealistic, limited coaster building (weight 0.21): The coaster building experience is criticized for a clunky UI, unrealistic physics, and a lack of modern coaster features. There are limitations on customization options, such as the inability to change coaster cars or adjust friction on individual coasters. The game also lacks certain coaster types and models found in real-world parks. - Frustrating, complex pathing tool (weight 0.18): The path construction tool is criticized for being frustrating, complex, and difficult to use, especially compared to the previous game. Reviewers mention issues with snapping, height adjustments, and a general lack of user-friendliness. The inability to adjust queue path widths is a common complaint. - Poor guest AI, pathfinding issues (weight 0.17): Guests frequently get stuck on paths, exhibit unrealistic behavior, and struggle to navigate the park effectively. This leads to congestion, frustration, and a negative impact on park ratings. The pathfinding issues persist even after updates aimed at fixing them. - Ride and staff management issues (weight 0.14): Guests don't reliably get on rides, ride operators neglect their duties, and rides break down frequently. Many rides are missing from the game. The staff system is dysfunctional, with staff neglecting their duties and rides breaking down frequently. - Missing theme park elements (weight 0.13): The game is missing essential theme park elements, such as carnival games, arcade machines, restaurants and hotels. The game lacks user-friendliness in several areas, such as the inability to see how many of each ride have been built. The game gives the feeling of having a rather empty park when trying to create a large park. - Limited theme variety (weight 0.11): The game lacks a sufficient variety of themes and associated items, limiting creative possibilities. Many reviewers miss themes from the first game, such as pirates, sci-fi, and western. The base content feels limited, with a heavy focus on specific themes like Viking. - Scenery and building limitations (weight 0.11): The game suffers from limitations in scenery scaling, a lack of building and scenery items, and inconsistent asset quality. Terraforming is tedious due to a small brush size, and scenery placement is hampered by snapping issues. The limited map size also restricts creativity. - Persistent bugs, slow fixes (weight 0.1): While updates are addressing some bugs, new ones keep appearing, and some previous issues remain unresolved. The developers seem to be focusing on adding features that the community does not prioritize, while critical bugs remain unaddressed. The game still needs some extra work. - Unengaging, unbalanced career mode (weight 0.1): Career mode is criticized for being boring, buggy, and unbalanced, with an economy that's too easy and uninspired scenario design. Some reviewers find the management gameplay to be a disaster. The career mode is inferior to the first game, feeling more challenging and frustrating. - Unrealistic ride pricing, economy (weight 0.06): Theming rides is the biggest influence on ride prices, which is annoying and unrealistic. Ride pricing logic is nonsensical, with inconsistencies in what guests are willing to pay. The game's economy is poorly balanced; a park with no rides but with info and souvenir shops can be very profitable. Gameplay feedback: - Familiar gameplay, lacks innovation (weight 0.09): The game offers familiar gameplay to Planet Coaster 1, with returning rides and coaster building mechanics. However, some reviewers feel it lacks substantial innovation and material options compared to its predecessor, making it feel more like a DLC than a full sequel. - Tedious power/water management (weight 0.08): The game introduces power and water management systems, requiring players to build infrastructure and manage resources. However, some reviewers find these systems tedious and not impactful, suggesting they can be ignored or disabled without significant consequence. - Water parks are major addition (weight 0.06): Water parks are a major new addition, seamlessly integrating with existing park rides and coasters. Players can design pool areas and add features like diving boards and wave generators. - Custom animatronics creation possible (weight 0.02): The game allows for the creation of custom animatronics using moving platform pieces. While complex movements require creativity due to limited programmability, this feature allows for unique and dynamic scenery. - Improved track editing, some annoyances (weight 0.01): Track editing has been improved, with the game now preventing accidental segment hopping. However, some reviewers find refining the track during building to be annoying. Performance notes: - Inconsistent performance and optimization (weight 0.18): The game's performance and optimization have been a mixed bag. While some players report smooth gameplay and improvements over the previous title, others experience significant lag, stuttering, and frame rate drops, even on high-end systems. Initial performance issues have been partially addressed by updates, but optimization remains a concern for many. - Visual glitches and lighting bugs (weight 0.15): Some players have reported visual glitches, blurriness, and lighting bugs. The blurriness can often be mitigated by adjusting settings, but lighting issues may require disabling shadows altogether. These graphical issues detract from the overall visual experience. - Performance degrades in large parks (weight 0.05): Performance degrades in larger parks with many objects and guests, leading to lag spikes and unplayable frame rates. Some players also report low CPU and GPU utilization, suggesting inefficient programming may be contributing to these issues. - Improved engine over Planet Coaster (weight 0.03): Some reviewers noted that the game engine runs better than the original Planet Coaster, with smoother gameplay, better graphics and lighting, and a significant FPS boost. The game seems to be more optimized and can handle more park visitors with a better frame rate compared to the first game. - DLSS/FSR improves performance (weight 0.02): The game supports DLSS and FSR, which can significantly improve frame rates, especially in complex parks with many guests. These features allow for larger parks without as much of a performance hit. - Mixed Steam Deck performance (weight 0.01): The game's performance on Steam Deck is mixed. While some users report that it runs fine, others experience low FPS. Adjusting settings and using FSR can improve the experience. - Audio static and stuttering issues (weight 0.01): Some users have reported experiencing static noise and audio stuttering issues that are not present in other games. This suggests a potential problem with the game's audio implementation. - Memory leak and lag issues (weight 0.01): One reviewer reported a memory leak that damaged their computer's cooling system and CPU. Another experienced significant lag in a tutorial park due to scenery, requiring them to lower the display quality to 'Low'. Recommendations: - Wait for updates/fixes (weight 0.94): Many reviewers suggest waiting for more updates and bug fixes before purchasing. The game's state at launch was subpar, but patches have addressed some issues. The game is expected to improve significantly over time as developers continue to address issues and add content. - Game is buggy and unstable (weight 0.92): Numerous reviewers report frequent crashes and bugs that significantly detract from the experience. Some find the game unplayable due to these issues, even months after release. Frequent saving is recommended to mitigate data loss from crashes. - Not better than Planet Coaster 1 (weight 0.37): Some reviewers feel the game is not a true successor, with some preferring the original Planet Coaster (PC1). They cite missing features, control issues, and a lack of variety in coasters and themes as reasons for their preference. Some suggest sticking with PC1 or waiting for significant improvements. - Good for creative sandbox play (weight 0.37): Many reviewers recommend the game, especially for creative players who enjoy sandbox mode and building. They find the game engaging and fun, praising its creative possibilities and the ability to design unique parks and coasters. Some reviewers highlight the game's accessibility for new players. - Hope for continued improvements (weight 0.09): Reviewers express hope that the developers will continue to improve the game and address existing issues. Some reviewers are concerned about the potential for paid DLC to gatekeep essential content. The developers' responsiveness to feedback is seen as a positive sign. - Weak management simulation aspects (weight 0.08): Some reviewers find the game lacking as a tycoon or management simulator. They suggest that the game is better suited for creative building in sandbox mode than for career scenarios or park management. Some reviewers recommend alternative park management sims. - Overpriced for current content (weight 0.05): Many reviewers feel that the game is overpriced for what it currently offers. They recommend waiting for a sale or for more content to be added before purchasing. Some reviewers suggest that the DLCs are not worth buying unless heavily discounted. - Desire for more themes/content (weight 0.05): Reviewers are looking forward to more themes, content, and updates to the game. Some reviewers are excited to recreate favorite rides from their local amusement park. Some reviewers are hoping for free updates to fix bugs and add new themes and more animatronics. - Game is dead/abandoned by devs (weight 0.02): Some reviewers express extreme disappointment with the game, stating that it is already dead and abandoned by the developers. They feel that the game is launching with the most work needing to be done compared to other Frontier games. Some reviewers recommend purchasing Planet Coaster 1 with all DLCs during a sale for a more rewarding experience. Other player notes: - Active development and updates (weight 0.14): The developers are actively updating the game and responding to community feedback, with many reviewers expressing hope and anticipation for future improvements, bug fixes, and content additions. Some reviewers plan to update their reviews as the game evolves. - Desire for more customization (weight 0.04): Reviewers desire more creative control and customization options, such as additional scenery pieces, map generation tools, and expanded sandbox mode settings. Some reviewers also want more variety in ride types, drawing inspiration from real-world amusement parks. - Missing content from first game (weight 0.04): Many reviewers note that the new game is missing features and content present in the first Planet Coaster, including themes and decor pieces. While some find the new game more usable, they still await the return of missing features through updates. - Console focus impacts PC (weight 0.03): Some reviewers feel the game's design is influenced by console play, which has negatively impacted the PC experience. There is also a sentiment that the game's release felt rushed and needed more polishing. - Blueprints enhance gameplay (weight 0.01): The blueprint section, where community builders share creations, is a major reason for continued play. The game offers pre-designed plans that showcase the decorations well. - Global illumination issues (weight 0.01): Global illumination quality depends on the video card, with high-end cards required for optimal performance. Global illumination is bugged on an RTX 4050, causing lights to flicker with a pixelated glow. - Workshop enhances creativity (weight 0.01): Workshop items generally use less than 800kb of space, and parks reach 3-4MB, so space shouldn't be an issue for most users. Using Workshop assets makes it easier to fill in gaps with own ideas or tweak downloaded content to fit the park’s theme. - Lack of playtesting (sarcasm) (weight 0.01): One reviewer spent more time writing the review than Frontier spent playtesting the game. This point is primarily sarcastic and lacks specific details, so its importance is reduced. Emotions: No emotions}