Megaquarium is a downloadable strategy in which you care for sea animals. So what is it exactly all about? Let’s find out. The 1990s were the heyday of simulation games and titles that put the player in the management or development role of a major project. That could be a city as in SimCity or a theme park as in Rollercoaster Tycoon. One major theme of these games is that of unlimited power with limitless creativity.
Unfortunately, both of these things are often bounded by a very limited budget and the need to take that initial sum and make more money in order to grow your creation to its upper limits. Maxis pioneered this gameplay to a large extent but Roller Coaster Tycoon is perhaps the more appropriate distillation for this when it comes to describing Megaquarium.
How to Download Megaquarium
You can download Megaquarium from either Steam or GOG.com. To start your download of the game click on the link provided at the end of the review.
The Game Review
Megaquarium, like Roller Coaster Tycoon, is a theme park oriented simulation game. In RollerCoaster Tycoon you basically build up a theme park from scratch with the goal of building rides and amusements that will attract larger and larger crowds who will pay your set admission fee to your park, thus rewarding you with revenue (and profit) from which you can build more and more attractions.
Using various in-game metrics to measure your success, Roller Coaster Tycoon rewarded creativity but there was definitely an underlying logic to it all and that is also very much the case in Megaquarium.
In Megaquarium you are responsible for building up your own aquatic center for tourism and you have to fill it with attractions that will not only make you money but will keep visitors coming back. Megaquarium is a multilayered game that also goes to great lengths to simulate the less glamorous aspects of running a business like keeping staff happy and setting schedules for maintenance.
The level of granularity at which players engage in Megaquarium is part of its charm and a huge chunk of its challenge. Managing a park in real life is challenging and it is even more so when done in a virtual environment. This means that players will have to rely upon the in-game data provided to them to make decisions and this can be tough. Like a real manager poring over monthly reports, you’ll find yourself analyzing all kinds of patterns for insight into what to do next with your park.
Though a consistent challenge, Megaquarium is never dull and it is nearly impossible to predict how a gameplay session will play out. What worked in one session may not work again and it is this dynamic element that makes Megaquarium such a great experience for players that love sims.
Replay is one thing, but there’s also a huge level of challenge in this and it also encourages players to explore outside of the box concepts in the game. Too often in sims, there is a set strategy that players prefer and this tends to severely limit the number of creative choices a player can make during the game. Not only is this not the case in Megaquarium but many players may find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer amount of choice present in the game.
