Planet Zoo: Africa Pack, the tried
Planet Zoo
Frontier Developments is a development studio that has made concreteness its trademark, one of the few that in recent years has never missed a beat, always hitting projects of undoubted appeal for the public, not millionaires but successful in their wide niches, which are made to survive for years and years to the sound of free updates and paid DLC. After all we are talking about the software house of David Braben, a veteran of the sector and a man with an extremely direct mentality; one of the few that has survived the many changes that have taken place in the video game industry from the 1980s to today.One of Frontier's most popular strands is that of park management, whether they are the playgrounds of Planet Coaster, the dinosaur parks of Jurassic World Evolution or the zoological gardens of Planet Zoo. Planet Zoo: Africa Pack, which we have had the opportunity to try these days, is only the latest, in chronological order, of the DLCs published for the latter. As the title suggests, the destination this time is the African continent, a place that joins the water parks, the Arctic, South America, Australia and Southeast Asia (yes, they are all DLC).
Contents
In a sense, looking at the other Planet Zoo DLCs you can already get an idea of what awaits us in Africa Pack, at least in terms of the amount of content . We therefore have five new animals: the meerkat, the southern white rhino, the African penguin, the fennec and the sacred beetle, which add to those already present such as lions and giraffes, each offering its own habitat to build and manage; there are many new objects to customize African zoos, almost two hundred in total, and there is a new challenge in which we must be able to develop a very small zoo, created in a bazaar, whose initial conditions are disastrous (or almost) .For the rest, the game dynamics are absolutely not touched by the installation of the DLC, which is limited to adding and confirming all the mechanics, whose improvement is usually entrusted to free updates that involve all players (l 'last, 1.6, was published just on the occasion of the launch of the Africa Pack).
The rhino After all, the purpose of similar packages is not to revolutionize, but to bring a different flavor to the gameplay, tickling the players' fantasies, so as to give them stimuli to get back into action .
So now building a park full of rock platforms on which to let our lions live becomes not only possible, but also more beautiful and, in a certain sense, better contextualized. Of course, what we continue to do is: build the habitats, check that everything works, then expand them if necessary, and then gaze at them from different angles, enjoying the perfect modeling of the animals and the small breathtaking landscapes created by the composition of the various elements of the zoo. After all, Frontier has long understood that in order to meet the public's favor, it must substantially transform games of the genre into beauty contests, in which what is built has not only an economic function, but above all an aesthetic one, so as to attract virtual and real visitors.
Some of the new Arabesque architectures are peculiar and very beautiful to look at. In this sense it is not legitimate to expect much more from Africa Pack, which fulfills its duty in full without transcending. The important thing, we repeat, is to be aware of what is in front of you and what its scope is.
From what we have been able to try, Africa Pack offers more or less what the other packages offered. contents already published for Planet Zoo. The discriminating factor, therefore, is not so much what it contains, but the interest one feels towards the proposed scenario and towards Planet Zoo itself. If you're still playing it more than a year and a half after launch, you probably don't want to miss the chance to extend the experience a little longer. After all, it's a great way to build themed zoos and the five new animals are really well done. The important thing is not to look for what is not there and does not pretend to be there.
