Nov 29, 2007
One day, some developers looked at Rollercoaster Tycoon and Theme Park and decided they just weren’t wacky enough. This sequel to the console title Thrillville is set upon force-feeding you proof of its craziness until you vomit. From the ‘whoa’ coasters to the Christopher Lloyd-style scientist nut to the ‘hilarious’ minigames, Off the Rails is plain out of this world.
At least, it tries to be. Under the veneer of madness, this is a capable but dumbed-down console port of a theme park sim, dealing with the chores of management through a selection of generic minigames. These are a mix of every cliché imaginable: a side-scrolling beat-’em-up, a DDR clone, a racer, some kind of Tron rip-off - they’re all here and mostly utterly boring. To add insult to injury, the PC version is clearly an afterthought. Everything is awkwardly placed, with unintuitive controls and console-style menus leading to unnecessary fumbling.