Zoo Empire

List Price: $9.99 Discount Price: $1.15

Features:

• Creatively design and operate a thriving zoo
• Choose from 40+ species and subspecies of animals
• Build amazing touring facilities; over a dozen different terrain types
• True real-time rendered water reflections; dynamic real-time shadows
• Scattering sky technology for weather changes and day/night cycles

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

Buyer Beware [Posted on 2005-04-28]
I would like to echo the sentiments of the other reviews, in that the average consumer can easily be misled into thinking that they have the proper system requirements in order to run this program. My son bought this for $20 at our school book fair, and has never been able to play it, due to the unusual graphics requirements. To purchase a compatible graphics card is basically ridiculous, as they seem to cost far more than the game itself. Now we're stuck with a brand new game that is essentially worthless!

Crash, starve, and other minor glitches UPDATE!!! [Posted on 2006-01-31]
Hi. I am an adult that enjoys creating these parks for my kids to run as my youngest just turned 9 and it can be difficult for her to do anything extravegant although she has picked things up pretty quickly! We have had no problems navigating through everything and have learnt alot by trial and error. We also found the instruction book unhelpful and unfortunately we haven't found much help online.

I have downloaded two patches for the software and found they didn't really help. Perhaps I need to reboot my system after installing them. I too have my pc reboot automatically during the game, but not as often as others I have read about on here. I think the ones that have more problems with this don't have a strong enough pc. I don't recall looking at the box requirements other than you need windows XP and the speed.
Those of you having problems with making fences and parts of animals disappearing may need a better machine. One occuring problem I even have is one piece of sidewalk will disappear and sometimes if I scroll around the park and then come back it will appear again.

One terrible problem I have is when I hire a zookeeper they immediately capture the animals in the exhibit! And I can't do anything with them. No instructions to the zookeeper will work, he'll just stand around after doing nothing with these captured animals. I can't move them to another exhibit or tell him to release them. Weird. Any input on this would be welcome!

Otherwise I rated this game 5*'s, but 4*'s overall because of all the problems. The coolest part for my kids are when babies are made and they appear in a cloud of hearts and smoke.

If you have any help on these problems please post replies! Thanks!

I found this on the Enlight site for ZE.exe problems:

Generally this problem will occur when the game has been copied to a corrupted area of the hard drive and conflicts with other applications that are running in the RAM.

To solve this problem you can follow these steps;

1.) Clear your Hard Drive space with the assistance of some defragmenter software.

You can defrag your system by following these steps;

(NOTE; Mac operators will have to purchase a separate software tool to complete this, Norton Utilities offer such a service)

Window Operators;
- Click the START button.
- Go to Accessories
- System Tools
- Disk Defragmenter

Once this has been completed please uninstall, then reinstall Zoo Empire.

2.) Make sure all unnecessary applications are closed before running the game. You can also clear up the memory by rebooting and running the game again.

As a last resort you can reinstall your whole system as well as the game. Of course in most cases this is unnecessary, however once this is completed and your system hardware has been configured appropriately you will experience optimum performance with your software.

Avoid THIS GAME !!! [Posted on 2006-06-18]
Again as the other consumers have said... DO NOT BUY this game. It will not play on about 95% of the computers that have been manufactured. Save your money. Buy ZOO TYCOON ... a good game!

A few tips and hints after only playing the demo..... [Posted on 2006-07-03]
I usually play demos of games before I consider buying them, to know if I can even understand the game enough to enjoy it. I play alot of games that are like this, and I enjoy simulation games as well. And here is some of what I noticed:

I was reading another persons review and they said that the camera moved too fast. They were probally clicking then going right to the edge of the screen to move, and the games camera is not meant to function that way. The farther you move your mouse from the point where you clicked makes it move faster, it works best if you just move a centimeter or two from the point you clicked, trust me. I've encountered this type of camera control in games before and your first time using it is usually very confusing and frustrating.

Another person also said the zookeeper would immediatly cage their animals. I also had that happen the first time I attempted an exhibit. But after looking around the menus a bit, I discovered why this happens: the first fence you find is for DECORATION ONLY. It is not meant to contain animals, so to the zookeeper, an animal surronded by decorative fence might as well have no fence whatsoever around it, and puts the animal in a crate. I don't quite remember what menu it's under, it might be Animal Enrichment Objects, but there is EXHIBIT FENCES for containing animals.

Someone also said that they were having problems placing fences. Yet again, I have encountered the way fences are to be placed in this game in other games. The way it works is that you have to click and the move your mouse to where you want it. But if you go to the left or right of being in a straight line from your starting point, it will make and L. You cannot make squares without 2 starting points, and there is no(to my knowledge in this game at least) diagonal walls.

Otherwise I thoroughly enjoyed playing the demo and plan to purchase the full game. I was espescially impressed with the quality of the graphics in this game. Though I did notice that the black bears rear is quite skinny compared to his front!!!

Fun, with a dash of frustration [Posted on 2008-03-31]
For people that are looking for a game which will take longer than an hour or so to beat and love animals, this is your game.

The tutorial levels can be quite tedious until you get a handle on the camera controls and terrain editor. However, they are good preparation for the levels ahead, and I would suggest completing them to optimize your zoo in the free play mode.

I found that when you become very adept at creating a happy environment for the animals they are VERY quick to procreate, and before you know it you have a small exhibit with a large quantity of animals.

When using the terrain editor to create hills/mountains or valleys/bodies of water, it is difficult to tell how much you are affecting the selected land.

Once you become confident in your skills, you can really have fun with it without frustration. All-in-all, a good game.

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