Thrillville: Off the Rails

Visiting a theme park all too often bursts the nostalgia bubble � a bit like playing a game or watching a film you cherished as a child, only to realise it was a load of tosh all along.

The hours of waiting in queues, the screaming kids and the fact there's only a handful of rides actually worth experiencing, means you just return home exhausted and wishing you hadn't left the predictable pleasure of the sofa. A far cry from the awe and excitement you remember feeling as a kid.

That's without considering the stacks of cash you'll have spent to get in the place; not to mention the extra expenditure on overpriced, greasy snacks. Or maybe we're just getting old.

Thrillville: Off the Rails – the first Thrillville game to be released on the DS – gives you the opportunity to forgo this whole palaver and enjoy the sights and sounds of the theme park from your comfy chair. Like watching Glastonbury on cable. It's enough to make you sigh deeply, don some slippers and consider taking up pipe smoking.

The game sees you take the helm of six differently themed parks throughout the globe, each of which you find in a state of disrepair thanks to the workings of your evil rival, the Globo Joy Corporation. It's your job, then, to build rides, games and shops, as well as hire and train staff, in order to bring these parks back up to a standard worthy of the Thrillville name.

However, such a description misrepresents the game. It's not actually a business sim at all. Indeed, the main sins of the 'evil' Globo Joy corporation relate to having little more than a passing interest in the economics of its parks.

The only thing that costs in Thrillville are new rides and buildings. There's no upkeep costs to pay or even any wages for your staff. (Which, of course, technically means they're slaves – but let's call them volunteers.)

The game obviously has a casual or younger audience in mind. Each of the parks play like a separate level, consisting of around 20 bite-size missions. These generally involve activities like building attractions, keeping your guests happy for a certain length of time or challenging visitors and game characters to mini-game duels. In addition, there's a light-hearted story that runs through the levels about your rivalry with Globo Joy, and a good few missions will be linked into this per park.

Other than whizzing about building things, the mini-games form the bulk of the experience. One of the main problems with Thrillville is that there simply isn't enough of them. Only seven turn up, all using the touchscreen, and range from throwing basketballs through hoops to popping balloons with darts or separating fish by their colour. They do manage to remain fun far longer than you'd expect, but it's not quite enough to sustain your attention.

Alongside these sideshow-style mini-games, there are mini-games linked into the management of the park. Training your mechanics requires a tile-sliding puzzle game to be completed; the entertainer, a Simon Says-style memory game; while with your maintenance man, you indulge in a rubbish-sweeping affair.

Once these workers have been employed and trained, though, you never have to worry about what they're doing. The rubbish, the broken rides or the entertained patrons can all be forgotten. Indeed, there is a definite flimsiness to Thrillville. Take the character you control: you can pretty much ignore them and just deal with everything by scrolling around the map and doing it with the cursor. Your character doesn't even have to be next to someone for you to be able to talk to them, and is effectively superfluous.

Visually, the game isn't astounding, although the noises are at least suitably funfair-like. The characters look cute but the parks they're in seem a little flat despite being rendered in 3D. And, if you're wondering, you don't actually get to ride the rides, at least not properly. There's no first-person perspective when you go on them, and instead you watch your character riding them from the standard perspective – hardly thrilling.

Nevertheless, while Thrillville might be low on content, it's well pitched for quick-blast gaming sessions. Apart from a couple of later missions that get you doing dull, overlong tasks such as talking to 25 guests, they're predominantly fun.

Anyone hoping Thrillville offers a proper management game in the vein of classic title Theme Park is likely to be disappointed. So too are those expecting a game like the Thrillvilles of the other platforms (with their sprawling collections of mini-games). Off the Rails on DS makes for a a light and entertaining, if a little fluffy, experience.

Still, it's certainly much better than spending two hours in the rain, waiting to go on the teacups at a real theme park.