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Thrillville: Off the Rails is not Halo 3. It's not Project Gotham Racing 4. It's certainly not Manhunt 2. It is a cutesy, sugary, brightly coloured romp where you build stomach-churning rollercoasters (Woahcoasters) in your own customised theme parks, taking time out to play a host of solid mini-games when the day job gets too much.
Now doesn't that sound appealing? It's sort of likethe gaming equivalent of a hot cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit after a two-mile hike across a frosty moor. Sort of. Mmmmmmm...
You can't expect The Bruckheimer effectwhen you're playing Thrillville, but you can expect an accessible and rewardingly simple 'sim' game. That's simple as in 'easy to grasp' - the rides you make can be as simple or as head-spinningly complex as you like. And there lies the appeal.
Building rides, placing games and all the rest is so painless you could have a working park up in minutes. But to build a perfect park, ah, that's the dream. If you can tear yourself away from the endlessly enjoyable mini-games, that is, including the frankly awesome Alien Hominid-style fighterBandito Chinchilla and the irresistable Sumo Saucers. All of which offer fantastic four-player modes.
It's here where we spent most of our own hands-on time, in fact. And most mini-games boast quality usually offered by (or, more often, missing from) entire collections of mini-games. Combined with the real meat of Thrillville's park building gameplay, it all makes for a satisfyingly weighty package.
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We'd be wrong to evangelise Thrillville as a game to challenge heavyweights like Halo 3, PGR4 orWarkhawk in the stakes for your attention. But there has to be something specialabout this cute little game that reduced four cynical games journalists to squabbling about whetherwe shouldhave one more go at Stunt Rider or move on to Timed Mini-Golf.
Thrillville: Off the Rails should whoosh onto shelves later this month. Onthis pre-review experience, we'd recommend it as a giant happy bundle of fun. You remember fun, right?
Ben Richardson is a former Staff Writer for Official PlayStation 2 magazine and a former Content Editor of GamesRadar+. In the years since Ben left GR, he has worked as a columnist, communications officer, charity coach, and podcast host – but we still look back to his news stories from time to time, they are a window into a different era of video games.
