Zoo Tycoon 2: Endangered Species

Facts

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios, USA
Target Group: 10 +
Price: 50 Euro
Distribution: CD-ROM
Type of game: Simulation

Story

Zoo Tycoon 2 is the advanced sequel to the popular and award-winning game Zoo Tycoon. Aim of the game is to build up the ultimate zoo. The player has to care for the animals, for the success of the business and for the fun of the visitors. Endangered Species is an expansion pack with several threatened and endangered species, such as the Javan Rhinoceros, the Crested Gibbon or the Galapagos Giant Tortoise. The extension contains also new thematic buildings like a specialised research facility devoted to breeding endangered and critically endangered species.

Elements of the game

The player can choose between different missions: in the management mode, careful decisions have to be made in order to simultaneously maximize guest satisfaction, animal happiness, and zoo profits. Releasing animals back into the wild might win awards and increase conservation efforts but has also a negative impact on guest happiness because the animal is not in the zoo anymore. Saving money to acquire more land or build bigger attractions might require reducing investment in conservation or breeding endangered species. In the zookeeper mode, the player gets a view behind the barriers and can for example feed and water the animals, empty trash cans, and scoop up piles of poop. In the habitat editor mode, she manipulates terrain to create waterfalls, elevated walkways, water features, natural boundaries for the zoo and of course animal exhibits. In the zoo guest mode, the player changes the view into the guests` perspective to see how the exhibits she has created are faring with both their animal inhabitants and the humans who have come to visit them.

Another element of the extension pack are new buildings and objects such as a bat cave for settling insect-eating bats or the conversation breeding centre which makes it easier to breed all endangered and critically endangered species in the zoo.

In the Zoopedia, the player learns about the endangered species, especially about the natural habitats and behaviour of the animals (taken from Microsoft Encarta encyclopaedia).

How biodiversity is presented

The loss of biodiversity is the principal theme of this extension pack. To stop this loss by breeding endangered animals in zoos is of course only one very small aspect of the protection of biodiversity. So the real reward of this game is dealing with the threat of diversity of species. In this game, the preoccupation with endangered animals is really fun.

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