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| Behold, the Lamb! |
Before I get to my review, it's also worth mentioning that they've continued to add digiverse crossover content from some of my favorite games into Two Point Museum. Now, you can tend to the spiritual needs of the clueless masses by adding in content from Cult of the Lamb. You can unlock shrines, decorative items, and even the lamb (may he be praised) himself!
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| It's little kitty, in the city. |
The newest digiverse content comes from a game I recently reviewed--Little Kitty, Big City. There are new craftable perks that require shinies (a new commodity item that you can gather from a specific point of interest in the Kitty digiverse), a new wildlife exhibit (kittiy's friend, the hattted chameleon), and two new exhibits. The kitty itself is the star of one of the exhibits!
Now, on to the "Rides and Relics" content!
What is it?
The newest DLC for Two Point Museum. It adds an entirely new museum to the campaign map and features a wide variety of rides. It is entirely un-museum-like...which, seems to be a tad controversial to some players. It can be purchased for $10.99 on Steam.
How much playtime can I expect?
Like I always say...it depends on your playstyle. If you just want to play through the three-star, story part of the museum, I would estimate ~20 hours. If you want to unlock and upgrade every single ride, I would clock it much higher.
Pros:
+ Bang for your buck. At $10.99 (which, sadly is a $1 increase over the typical $9.99 price for DLC's--inflation strikes again), it's a definite bargain. You get a lot of additional playtime for a low price.
+ Rollercoaster Tycoon vibes. (And, I'm going to chart this one as a pro and a con) One of the original Theme games from back in the day was Theme Park. It saw you managing a silly amusement park and was the forerunner to one of my ultimate favorites Theme Hospital. I'm fairly certain that the founders of Two Point are from the original Theme developers (Bullfrog), so in a way, it's getting back to their roots.
The amusement park theme is fun. There are a wide variety of rides--ranging from your more traditional carousel all the way up to several different types of rollercoasters. I was impressed by the sheer number of different rides that you can unlock. The new map features over 20 points of interest (not all feature a new ride, but most of them do).
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| My wildest rollercoaster. |
+ Mascot fun. A new feature is the ability to train assistants to don mascot uniforms to entertain your parkgoers. You can unlock mascot uniforms at special points of interest and each has its own benefit. The roachburglar (a mascot for the silly fast food chain Roachburger) uniform helps to reduce nausea. Mascots also help ease the impatience of guests waiting in queues.
+ New decorative items to spruce up the outdoors.
Cons:
- Many people have pointed out that the museum and theme park theme don't really go together. Some of the key gameplay aspects from the museum-based part of the game aren't in play--for example, you can assign experts to give tours, but your experts are also responsible for maintaining your rides (that's basically all my experts did). There aren't donations either--guests pay for tickets and then pay for each ride. Money is definitely not an issue in this DLC, but a key part of the museum gameplay is hiring security guards to patrol for thieves (also, not an issue). If you're some kind of museum gameplay purist, there's a good chance you won't enjoy this DLC.
- Vomit everywhere. The park is huge and I found that my janitors struggled to keep it clean. You have to hire an absolute army of janitors to keep your paths nice and vomit-free...and even then they still won't get to many spots.
- It's a bit buggy. I had an issue where one of my assistants got stuck in mascot mode (but wasn't wearing the suit...was just assigned the mascot task) and wouldn't shift out. I ended up firing the employee and it fixed the issue. I also had a story-related side task that wouldn't complete (there's a task to do "full maintenance" on a ride--this requires a ride to reach a low-medium maintenance level and then to fully shut down the ride so it can be fixed). I had several rides enter this mode and the task wouldn't complete--it finally did after 3-4 different completions (and, it turned out that the side task did absolutely nothing...I guess the purpose was just to show you the option to perform full maintenance). They seem to be working the bugs out, but don't be surprised if you encounter some weirdness.
- The variety of rides is great, but I wish there were more shops. There's a new popcorn cart and a hot cocoa (weird choice...) vendor, but that's it. Part of me wishes there were more carnival-like aspects--tickets to earn prizes, differing food and drink vendors (your typical fair foods--corndogs, whatever they have at British fairs--fish and chips?--maybe even some fried Twinkies), and giant plushies.
- Personally, I lack the patience and creativity to design cool coasters. The controls are very easy, but I kind of wish there were some pre-built designs that you could just slap down. I don't want to spend a bunch of time finagling my design to get it to a certain level of thrilling--just give me pre-builts at different levels. Leave the design to the patient, creative folks.
Recommendation:
If you're in the mood for gameplay that is decidedly more in the vibe of Rollercoaster Tycoon, you'll enjoy this DLC. If you're hoping for more museum-like content, you will likely be disappointed. I played through the three-star story level of the DLC and then was ready to stop (I didn't even unlock all the rides--there are a ton!).
