Zoo Tycoon 2 Mobile

Anyone who’s ever had a pet knows the time and effort you’ve got to spend on them. Whether it’s walking a dog, cleaning out the gerbil cage or feeding a finicky cat, it’s a big commitment to make. So you might wonder what the attraction is in replicating such tasks in a video game. Surely the upside of looking after a real animal lies in the companionship with it and the fun that’s to be had playing with it. Remove that and there’s little point, right? The designers of Zoo Tycoon 2 don’t seem to think so. Putting you in charge of a zoo and looking after the animals that are exhibited within it, Zoo Tycoon 2 equates the well-being of the animals with profit. If the animals that you feed, bathe and scoop poop for are happy, the bottom line also benefits.

That’s really as deep as things get in this Tycoon game that unsuccessfully attempts to merge the animal caring of Tamigotchi or Neopets with a business element that requires you to raise a specific amount of profit from each animal. Neither part is particularly fulfilling or involving and leaves you with the feeling that if the developers had stuck with just one side of the equation things would have worked out so much better.

Caring for the animals, for instance, is nothing but picking an animal and clicking on a series of different buttons amidst an overly fiddly interface. The animals in question are, supposedly, receptive to how you treat them and their level of happiness is represented by a little green smiley face. Do anything to tick them off and it changes to an angry red one. The animals’ various desires are indicated by little thought bubbles with a picture of what they want, whether it’s food, medical attention or to be played with. In action this amounts to a continually shifting set of demands and there’s no time to sit back and enjoy what you’ve accomplished. There’s always, always, something that they need. Perhaps if there was some sort of reward or a greater level of interaction with the animals to make this worthwhile it would be fun, but here it simply becomes a rota of button pressing. Even the task of playing with the animals is nothing more than clicking on them once or twice. The business side of things is just as limited. You’ll see no customers on-screen and there’s no book balancing, setting ticket or soda prices, or interaction with them at all. Your financial success is measured simply by a running profit at the top of the screen.

All this combines to create an utterly underwhelming experience. Nothing in the game drives you forward save the fact that you need to hit a certain profit level. Earning access to more animals (you start with a tiger and can progress onto elephants, monkeys, giraffes and the like) doesn’t change the dynamics of the game at all, merely requiring that you tailor their surroundings accordingly from the small choice of habitats that you have on offer to you.

Zoo Tycoon 2 is one of those games that tries to do too much and does none of it particularly well. If you fancy a game that enables you to care for a virtual pet, wait for Neopets, which will be launching this autumn. If you hunger for an entertaining business challenge, try Monopoly Tycoon instead, out now. Like fresh fruit in the Tiger's cage, Zoo Tycoon simply won’t satisfy either of those cravings.