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Apparently shed fed my giraffe in Zoo Tycoon, and it might have had a baby.

My stomach was already in my throat when I received the follow-up message and learned the giraffe definitely had a baby.

Using the simple menu system and a circular cursor, you select a new display or restroom or concession stand and plant it wherever youd like on a flat grassy map, gradually creating a sprawl of restrained wildlife.

The screen is often overtaken by tiny pop-up updates written in tinier text not ideal for a television screen.

Zoo Tycoon s best trick, and the reason I enjoyed playing it in a big room with lots of people, is the ability to switch at any time into a third-person character a zoo tycoon, if you will and roam the park youve constructed.

The tycoon character exists to help you better engage with the park and its dozens of creatures.

The game can be played in its entirety with a controller, but I supplemented the controller with the occasional Kinect-based animal interaction because Im a sucker for hand-feeding giraffes even if I know deep down theyre just artwork and lines of code.

The game calls to mind Kinectimals, another Frontier Developments game in which you play with impossibly cute baby animals.

The art design carefully walks the line between cartoonish and life-like.

Zoo Tycoon is an attractive game despite the occasional frame rate issues and some jaggy character models.

They yawn, stretch and scratch themselves like its their job which I suppose it is.

The throughline for the game is an endless stream of tasks with roughly three available at any time.

There are minor punishments for not completing these tasks within a relatively forgiving time limit, but not enough to distract you from creating the park you want to create or taking time to make kissy faces at tigers.

The tasks exist more as a tutorial, a guide and a failsafe to stop you from leaving the game on all day and accumulating massive amounts of money without punishment.

Eventually, youll want to ignore most of the tasks, because they can be quite repetitive: Im looking at you, repeated request to drive a buggy from one end of the park to the other in order to deliver coffee to my cruddy cafe.

In the early hours of Zoo Tycoon, every action, no matter how small, is cause for confetti, a level increase and a slew of unlocked animals to adopt.

The beginning is fun, but its also work, like youve been tricked into whitewashing Frontiers fence.

For every minute spent building something new, Id lose two minutes to repairing displays and cleaning poop.

I didnt expect to find depth, and so I didnt notice the game gradually training me to flip between perspectives, building, cleaning and repairing with the speed of a major league competitive gamer.

For a family game, Zoo Tycoon is commendable for not treating its players like children.

Complex management options, from setting advertising campaigns and ticket prices to upgrading a skill tree, are tucked away, waiting to be found, if you seek that sort of depth.

Zoo Tycoon 2 Wiki