Theme park simulators have always been a popular sub-genre of real-time strategy, ever since Bullfrog released the original Theme Park for PC in 1994. Since then, various titles, especially the Roller Coaster Tycoon series, have advanced the idea of running a theme park on your PC. Like most real-time strategy titles, theme park simulators were never very popular on consoles. However, last year’s release of Thrillville for PS2 and Xbox showed that a console theme park sim could be critically successful and sell well. This year, they’ve released a sequel, and a version has made its way to the DS.

The game’s story is simplistic: as an anonymous kid, you run a series of theme parks, all while trying to escape/stop the evil machinations of the Globo Joy Corporation, a rival theme park developer that is apparently staffed entirely by clowns, even at the corporate level. By the time you step into the picture, your parks are all in a state of disrepair — your primary task is to make the parks enjoyable (and profitable) again, and if you happen to take down an evil, clown-infested corporation in the process, then so be it. Honestly, the storyline is pretty silly, but at least the developers seem to realize that, and much of the game is played for laughs. Granted, it’s probably not anything that’s going to crack you up unless you’re a pre-teen, but even so, it’s nice to see a game that doesn’t take itself quite so seriously.

The core gameplay revolves around improving your parks. By building new rides, attractions, and shops, and hiring/training staff, the quality of each park improves, and more visitors arrive. It’s a shame, then, that the gameplay involved is so simple and hands-off. Your income steadily increases, and it’s almost impossible to go bankrupt since each purchase is cheap and new patrons are constantly arriving (you don’t even have to pay your staff wages, outside of a one-time hiring fee). Aside from choosing which attractions to build and where to put them, there’s really not much to the park-building elements. Even coaster-building (a dominant feature in every other version of Thrillville) is extremely simplified here; after choosing a coaster type (from metal, wood, water, and inverted), players simply choose a few “exciting” parts from a limited list (loops, barrel rolls, and so on) to add to the coaster, and that’s it.

So if you’re not busy actually building and maintaining your park, what are you supposed to do? The bulk of the gameplay involves completing missions in each park. Missions usually consist of talking to specific characters within your park, then playing a touch-screen mini game. While the mini games can be fun diversions, there are only seven in the entire game. This means that by the time you’ve played for a little while, you’ve probably seen everything the game’s got to offer.

Of course, the DS version doesn’t look anywhere near as good as the console versions, but that’s not to say that it’s a bad looking game. It uses an overhead, isometric viewpoint, reminiscent of the classics of the genre, and each ride/attraction/shop is rendered in bright, colorful 3D. While the rides are animated in cute and interesting ways, the DS’s comparably weak 3D abilities means that one of Thrillville’s major features, the ability to ride any ride or coaster, gets left to the wayside. Sure, your character can ride the rides, but this just means that your character is on the ride when it animates, instead of just random parkgoers.

This entry in the Thrillville series was clearly designed with younger players in mind, and it shows. While previous Thrillville games could be fun for the whole family, anyone older than 12 will likely bore quickly by this version; if your kid brother’s got a DS, though, he might enjoy his visit to Thrillville.

Gameplay: 5.4
Managing your park is pretty simple, and won’t keep you busy for long. If you took your time and completed all the missions, you might get a decent amount of gameplay out of the game, but overall, there’s just not a whole lot to do.

Graphics: 6.7
While they won’t astound anybody, the game does look pretty good for the DS. Everything’s got a cutesy style that’s somewhat entertaining, although older gamers won’t find much for them here.

Sound: 5.1
Thrillville’s tunes are just as cutesy as its graphics, but not nearly as tolerable. The game’s happy, bouncy music begins to grate on the nerves pretty quickly, although there are a decent range of songs for the different parks.

Difficulty: Easy
The parks don’t require a whole lot of upkeep from you to stay in good shape and profitable. In fact, once you’ve built a plethora of rides and attractions, and hired/trained your staff, the parks pretty much run themselves. At that point, you can just roam your parks, playing mini games (which are pretty easy in their own right).

Concept: 7.1
This is the sort of game that should work great on the DS. While Off the Rails doesn’t quite pull off the execution, the idea is tailor-made for Nintendo’s handheld.

Multiplayer: 4.7
Sure, you can send the mini games wirelessly to your friend’s DS to compete, but with all the other mini game compilations available on the DS, there’s really no reason to.

Overall: 5.3
Thrillville: Off the Rails is a kid’s game, and doesn’t try to hide that fact. While young gamers might enjoy the game for a while, though, the general lack of much to do ensures that it won’t keep them busy for long.