LGR - Disney's Coaster - DOS PC Game Review

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enAll right, so today we have a game.Well, maybe it's a game.It's game-like,and this game-like game that's possibly not a gameis Coaster, published by Walt Freakin' DisneyComputer Software, Inc., in 1993.Apparently, we are in for quite a wild time,or at least an experience that merits an agape mouth.\"Coaster. Take the Ultimate Scream Test!\"Not really sure why you would want to,but basically the back of the box here is telling youthat this piece of software is worth your dollar or fiftythrough words that try way too hard to rhyme.\"It's your dream. And your scheme.\"\"So relax, sit back and screeeeeeam.\"Ugh. I could write better rhymes than thiswhen I'm standing over the toilet taking a piss.Apparently, the game wasn'tactually developed by Disney.It was programmed by Dan Duncalfand there was some involvement from people whoworked on previous Disney titles like Stunt Island.The development team called themselves CTG,which stands for Code To Go.A bit of an odd name for a game development studio.Kind of like saying theirprogramming is the equivalent ofcarry-out food at a fast food restaurant.Am I getting McDonald's-quality software here, or what?Inside the box you get the gameon a single 3.5-inch high-density floppy disk,a rather lengthy and detailed manual,with man who never stopsscreaming on the front once again.There's also some other crap in here,notably a slip for the Disney Sound Source.This is just advertising the availability of the DSS,one of the sound devices supported by Coaster.It was essentially a Disney-branded,slightly enhanced Covox Speech Thingand very few games supported it.And one more thing to note:I really had never heard of this gamebefore I happened to see an ad for itin the catalog of my copy of Stunt Island,and that's largely to do with the name of the game itself.I mean, Coaster? Really, just Coaster?Try searching for a PC game named \"Coaster\"and you're gonna get a 100 different results,and almost none of them are gonna be about this game.It's just way too generic of agame name to stand out at all.That'd be like naming Sonic the Hedgehog \"Platformer.\"Or your movie \"Cars.\"Oh, ha ha...Ahhhh...The game starts off with an intro cinematicwith very overly-bubbly musicthat sounds like something out of my nightmares!Overlaid on top of imagery of peoplethat look like they would never ride roller coastersriding roller coasters.And the logo of the game three different timesjust in case you forgot whatit is you have actually installedand are currently playing.Next you've got a menu screen,which is actually nicely drawnand I guess I should expect no less from a Disney game.Point at stuff with your mouseand then see whatever happens toshow up on the computer monitor.That will let you know what you are clicking on.The tablet on the desktoplets you design a roller coaster.The window or the door will let you ride a roller coaster.And the nice-looking clone tower PC to the leftwill quit the game and allow you to returnto the always-exciting MS-DOS prompt.There are some other neat little thingsjust kind of hanging around here,but they don't do anything at all.Maybe I've played too many games by Humungous,but I though clicking on this lamp or the coffee cupcould at least do some cheesy little animation.Or Mickey Mouse sitting on the trash can orwhatever the frick it is over there by the door.You know, maybe he could do jumping jacks.Flip me off or something.That would be cool.But nothing happens.Now let's just go into \"Design A Coaster,\"which is really the meat of the game...simulation... program.This will allow you to eitherchoose a pre-made roller coasteror create a new one entirelythrough a rather CAD-like interface.And this one of the earliest games I can think ofthat allows you to do this with roller coasters.Yeah, sure there were CAD things where you could create your own 3D roller coasters or whatever,but this one puts it into an interfacewhich actually kind of makes senseand allows you to tweak some really interesting things.Like the acceleration, the upstops,the friction and even the gravity.There are also two track types to choose from:steel and magic.Steel coasters make sense.I mean, they're coasters made of steel.And magic ones just basically are the same exact thingexcept that they don't have any supports at all.They just float there. By use of magic.However, I do not believe in magicin a young girl's heartso I choose steel tracks most often.There are some limitations is steepness and bankingthat you can get around by using an external track editorsuch as DC-Edit.Now this program only worksin Windows, oddly enough,so you'll have to exit your DOS environment to do this.Once you have finished creating or editing your trackto your track-editing heart's content,you can return to the menuand go to Ride A Coaster mode.This will greet you with another screenand another short musical ditty,as well as giving you your first glimpse atthe only people to appear in Disney's Coaster,and that is these six dudes and dudettes,sporting an impressive lack of facial featuresand an impressive selection of early-'90s apparel.These are your \"evaluators,\"and if you go to the Profiles section,you can see each person up closeand what it is they're looking for,their basic personality types.In theory, this is supposed to let you knowwhat kind of experience they're going to be looking forwhen riding your roller coaster.Which is interesting because apparentlyDisney wants you to go on stereotypes hereand just kind of assumewhat each kind of personis going to want to experience.I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.I mean, this is Disney after all.You know, stereotypes, that's liketheir bread and butter.Now back at the menu, you can go to the file... menuand choose to open any roller coaster thathappens to be installed on your hard drive.Now these can be any you have created or edited,or the ones that come pre-installed with the game,some of which are based on real roller coasterslike the Matterhorn Screamer, for instance,or you could just download otherpeople's creations from the Internet.Choose a roller coaster, choose Ride, and off you go.Hands and arms in the car, please.Okay, I thought I was in a roller coaster game,not a recreation of the flight scenes from \"Top Gun.\"Ah, wait, never mind. This is a Disney roller coaster,so it's hardcore.Along the bottom of the screen, from left to right,you have the brakes,this green radar thing which shows you your G-forces,a timer which shows you how long each ride is,an on and off button,a speedometer in miles per hour,and an odometer showing how far you've gone,and on the right, you have a thrust button.So, yeah, you get NOS on a roller coaster.A fact that would normally make me raise an eyebrow,but then I remembered this is a '90s gameand that's just how it went.Pressing spacebar starts the roller coaster ride,and you can just let the coaster do its thing.But that's not very exciting,so you can press the right mousebutton to activate the THRUST,which is, uh, very...Yeah, you can make roller coasters thatgo like 200 MPH with the thrust enabled.The speedometer just kind ofkeeps going around and around,You are then shown the high score screen of thetop eight roller coasters that have been played.Now these scores come from the evaluators'overall total score given to that roller coaster ride.And you can go back into the Evaluationscreen and click the rating to see–OH, GOOD– UGH! What in the world?What happened to their faces?!Ew, and you can click on 'emand they twitch and stuff. Gugh!So clicking on each evaluator will notonly make them twitch like a dead corpse,it will provide their opinion on whatthey felt during the roller coaster ride.Which is usually something slightly cleverpertaining to their very one-sided personality.Really, though, this is a completelypointless part of Disney's Coasterbecause all you've really got to do ismake your coaster go EXTREMELY FASTand they'll be happy.Just make sure that the coaster doesn'tfly off the tracks, and you'll be good.And yes, your coaster can fly off the railswhich is made especially doable if youremove things like brakes and the upstops.In fact, the evaluators will oftenchoose not to ride the coaster at allif you remove those, insteadopting for a crash test dummy.I guess that's a way for them to getaround showing these people dying,which really would have added awhole new dimension to the gameand I think would have been very welcome.I mean, you can do that in Roller CoasterTycoon and other stuff like that.It was always great to seethe roller coasters fly off the railsonto the ground and see allthe little people splat everywhere.You've got those other things to screw around with, too,like the acceleration and the different gravity types.Moon Gravity, which is less gravity,and Jupiter Gravity, which is a lot more.But they're not nearly as exciting as they sound.Most of the time, you're just goingto get a super fast roller coasterthat either flies straight off the railsor looks as fast as any other roller coasterand makes the evaluators cream their pants in elation.The only other thing you can reallydo is go into the Signature menuto get some more detailed stats of your roller coaster.I don't really care.The main attraction here for me is being able to designand ride roller coasters in akind of 3D-looking environment,which technically was very impressive for 1993.And still, as a curiosity, it's pretty cool today,just seeing an older DOS game that does this.But really, there's tons of gamesthat have come out since thenthat have done this a whole lot better.And it's mainly because of this factthat Disney's Coaster comes to a halt.Sure, it's got some humor hereand there with the distorted faces,but that's really about it.That's kind of the only thing that sets this apartfrom any other roller coaster simulator.What it does it does well.There's nothing really wrong with Disney's Coaster.But there's no real game here.There's no real substance beyondbeing able to make a roller coaster.You can't change the scenery,there's no amusement park to put it in,you can't let visitors on there.All you have is these evaluators which never change.And sure, maybe it's not supposed to reallybe a game and have any of these features,and as a coaster designer, it's not too bad.But again, it's been surpassed by theNoLimits coaster series and such.What it comes down to is that nowadaysit's a coffee table game.It's something you just kind ofpoint out every now and thenand say, \"Hey, this was interesting for the time.\"But otherwise, you know, whatever.So, yeah, check out Disney's Coasterif you happen to run across it.But otherwise, I feel no needto recommend it past that initial curiosity at all.MAN: Whoa, boy!\n"