Zoo Tycoon (Nintendo DS, 2005)

My fiance and I bought the second edition for my 11 year old daughter for Christmas, it was such a huge hit we found this one and bought it as well. If your child LOVES animals, this game is great. While fun and keeps her attention, it is educational. You have to manage the animals, employees, guests, and build exhibits. Great fun at a great price.

Zoo Tycoon for Nintendo DS/DS Lite is very fun and I highly recommend it to animal lovers or Zoo Tycoon fanatics. I suggest buying it cheap on eBay rather than paying extra at a game store. The graphics are very close to that of the computer Zoo Tycoon. My favorite thing about it is the Freeform game where you create your own zoo starting with $100,000. With the cheat you can even get the unicorn which is cool. There are scenarios with objectives you can also play.

I have checked varying internet sources and I cannot figure out how to rename guests, exhibits, or the animals. Because of this, there is only one cheat that I found that works (unlock all items). This is one downside. Another downside is that laying down sediment is more complicated in the DS version. I have not found a way to rotate the zoo in order to see all sides of it, but you can hide buildings and foliage if you need to put a path behind something or whatever. Also, there are less things to add to your zoo in comparison to the computer version, but overall, it is still quite fun and addictive.

A fun alternative to the original PC game, but nowhere near as comprehensive. A lot of the features MUST be unlocked; there's now way around it, and the gameplay is stunted by the DS controls, so the fun part of Zoo Tycoon (building an amazing zoo on a $500,000 budget, then locking the park-goers in and releasing the animals and reveling in the chaos and occasional causaulty) is somewhat lost. It almost feels like a chore to unlock new animals or fences.
All the original features are present, however, which is impressive for a PC to DS game to have kept.
For first time players, the experience will likely be much more satisfying, and diehard fans will like the challenge as well.

I love this game! It is great fun to build your own zoo. Its fun to have such a variety of animals to choose from and to be able to build their enclosures and set the zoo up how you want. The only think I dislike about this game is that you can't save more then one zoo at a time. I got into making one zoo and it would not allow me to purchase more land (I started with a smaller zoo) and I ran out of room and since I could not start a new zoo and save the current one I had to junk it and start over with the larges one I could. It would be better to be able to either buy more land or be able to save multiple "games" or zoos so you dont have to start over each time. I would really recommend this game, I have gotten addicted to it!

Excellent game for kids and big kids alike. My granddaughter loves this one. She loves starting her zoos, collecting animals to build her zoos. She also loves taking care of the animals, minus the actual mess. For those whose child wants an animal or pet this is what you need to get for you kids. All the fun minus the mess. Love it, Love it, and so does her mother.