One of my childhood games, still love it, still addicting.

Excellent game but a little buggy in places. I got the game on a sale with all the expansions, which gives cracking value and a really vast amount of content for the money.

The very real question is whether or not this game is better than Zoo Tycoon, which is a tough one to answer.

Zoo Tycoon 2 is without question more polished, less buggy and very enjoyable to play.

However, Wildlife Park has masses of content, is cheaper, has more flexibility and an engaging realism.

In short, they are two quite different games so compliment each other quite well. I would definitely recommend getting the expansion packs for this as they are quite spectacular. On the whole I'd strongly recommend this and with some bug fixes it would probably beat Zoo Tycoon 2.

I've always liked simulation type games and looking after animals, this game is done very well.

I love how you can build your zoo from scratch and look after the animals and name them and watch them from close up or above.

And the graphics look quite good.

Though I dislike that each staff member has their own building, to me that is silly and takes up too much space. It ends up looking rather ugly having these tall staff buildings every where. There should be 1 major staff building for the animal workers and another building for the maintenance staff. And you can employ how ever many staff you need from each building and then asign to them a task or area for them to work. I did work experience at a zoo when I studied land management and the staff get to other areas around the zoo by bicycle or use a ute or other vehicle if needing to transport stuff.

I also dislike that you have to look after and watch the plants needs. That is not fun and I think it's unneeded. The plants should be alive but just classed as a decoration you don't have to look after like what they did in sims 3. Or at the very least I'd rather not have plants tell me they aren't happy and just have a gardener smart enough to look after them himself. So that I wont have to deal with the strangeness of plants telling me they aren't happy.

I also can't figure out how to properly build a water habitat. The game never shows you how to. I end up flooding everything or when I try to lower the ground more I end up with the water deep down the bottom and a massive cavern at the top. Iam not likely to buy the marine world DLC as I hate building marine habitats they always work out wrong. With you having to make a big hole and put a pump in and the water never fills up to the top and it looks ugly.

And underwater viewing tunnels don't work properly either.
When you build it you have one of two options.. you can either build a one-way line into the pool which ends underwater, or build a true tunnel with two exits.

If you opt for one-way visitors enter your tunnel but exit underwater and then swim in enclosure heedless of risk; and then start getting angry because they are stuck.

If you opt for two-way the tunnel acts like an invisible barrier preventing any animals from crossing sides - effectively cutting your pool in half. I did not test to see if this barrier prevents attacks by one species on another. But I did test and proved that they would rather starve to death than go get food just 2m on other side of the under water tunnel. Further animals begged for fellows if split up by a tunnel but don't if both on same side of it. And this barrier effect remained true no matter how deeply underwater the tunnel was placed and how shallow the animal's swim parameters were.

Could be more educational and have descriptions of the animals. Eg. Cheetah: a large feline of the felidae family which inhabits most of Africa and parts of Iran. It is the fastest land animal. It likes to hunt antelope etc.

I am likely to get most of the DLC eventually, except marine or horses as don't like marine habitat building and just horses in a dlc seems boring to me.

Despite the things I dislike this game overall is fun and enjoyable to play. I recommend it and give it 7/10.
It would of been an 8 but loses a point for things I dislike. Maybe If they make a much improved Wildlife Park 4 they'll make this one worthy of an 8 or higher.

The best zoo-tycoon game in my opinion. The WP series features heavily on realism, unlike the Zoo Tycoon series, although that series is good too. Animals look realistic, as are their AI behavior. It takes a while for babies to be born, unlike ZT where it apparently happens instantly. Food don't magically appear out of thin air to feed your animals. like in ZT. You need to place the proper facilities to make the food.

WP 2 also focuses more on those rare/unknown animals, unlike ZT where they feature mostly well known/popular animals. I like this idea, because it lets people who play this game learn about animals they've never seen/or read about before. For example, there's the frilled sharks from the marine expansion. I doubt many people who aren't shark fans would know what they are.

The map isn't really set up like a grid (ZT again). You simply 'paint' the paths along the ground for your customers to walk on, which makes your zoo look more realistic if you're using stone or dirt paths for instance.

One thing I do like in ZT over WP2 though is setting up your habitats for marine animals. It's very easy to do in ZT but I find it frustrating to do the same in WP2.

Both zoo series are good, but if you want more realism in a zoo game, then WP2 is the way to go. With 150+ animals, realistic AI, along with loads of plants and attractions, etc, however, you should buy it anyway.

OKay so as someone who still owns and plays the Zoo Tycoon games, I gotta say this one is pretty interesting. Now I like it even more with the amount of content when the (very inexpensive) expansions/DLC were bought and added.

The landscaping tools allow you to make a very detailed park as far as habitat and such goes. However some of the tools are labelled oddly. I suppose in other games I am used to the 'flatten' tool when in this game it's called 'plateau' but it does the same thing, bringing everything up/down to the same level and flat. A little finicky sometimes as it can be difficult to make a nice small pond in enclosures for drinking/swimming (sometimes there's not enough of a flat spot to put the water pump in so you have to mess around a bit). And the different types of turf are marked by hardness which is a little weird to me. I know some of the species of animals would like certain trees in their exhibits from their country of origin but the animals and trees can be dissatisfied trying to share the same turf type. I don't like the whole bit about micro managing the foliage of the park on top of the animals. That feels a little awkward.

Graphics are actually pretty decent, less cartoony than ZT 2 and (sadly) Wildlife Park 3. I am personally okay with the vast majority of them. Though I have one bug (not sure if anyone else gets this) where animals or people randomly turn invisible. They're still there and sometimes I find them by accidentally clicking on them. But you can't see them. You can see the 'meh' yellow smiley over their heads if they're somewhat unimpressed.

I do hate that the staff all have their own building, and you have to strategically place said buildings to get the most work out of your employees. The buildings take up valuable real estate that could instead be used for decoration or more exhibit space. On the plus side, the workers are pretty dedicated and no major complaints about them, in my humble opion. It would also be nice if they combined several of the staff into 'the Maintenance guy'. Gardener/Handyman/Bin Man could probably be the same dude since their work tends to be more infrequent.

I love the animal selection, though the Swiss Brown Cow is perm-invisible for me for some reason. You can create fairly interesting combinations of beasts for the most part, for mixed compatible exhibits.

Overall I'd have to rate this game (with all extra content) an 8/10 and if they make a 4th game and don't fudge it up like the 3rd one, I'll be the first to flail and yell "Shut up and take my money!"

more in depth than Zoo Tycoon and with a larger variety of animals, enjoy creating amazing zoos with animals both alive and extinct.

downside would be the animals trained get sold to circuses, so if your against circus animals might want to avoid that bit, but remember this is just a game and not real life, your not actually hurting animals it's just a pc game.

As a big fan of the Zoo Tycoon series, I wanted to check out more zoo sims and found this one to be fairly comparable. It has a very nice selection of animals, buildings, plants, and decorations, and the world building tools are actually a little more robust than the Tycoon series' in certain areas. I feel like the art direction of this game is also very good, tending to run a little more realistic than Tycoon's, which I personally enjoy. The animals themselves have nice enough personality and animation to them, and there's a wide variety.
That said, it does have some negative points. The buildings you need to care for your animals are large and a bit obtuse, and you need a lot of them. The whole 'plants have needs' thing is a neat idea, but in practice is nothing but irritating. The AI can be pretty wonky at times, with guests wandering off and getting lost or animals starving to death while staring at a trough overflowing with food. Luckily, these things are managable so long as you're paying attention, it's just more annoying than game-breaking.

That said, I think that if you're really into zoo sims, this is definitely up to par with its main competitors and is a solid game all around. I've put hours into my zoos and think it's definitely worth a buy.

There are a lot of people who compare this game to Zoo Tycoon, and for good reason. It's basically the same premise, after all. This game cannot be faulted for being less realistic than the ZT series, because it is, and that does add a little depth to the simulation.

BUT.

The interface is far, far more clunky than ZT's, and some of the design decision are questionable. For example, each zookeeper you hire requires you to build him a special Zookeeper's Hut, which is a three-story-tall eyesore. And he can only handle about two enclosures, so prepare to build a lot of them. Also, some of their claims about number of animals are specious (You can't have Rabbits AND Bunnies.), and the overall assortment of things to customize the look of your zoo is FAR smaller than ZT (No flower beds? Really? And the entire list of statues I can build is 'Bear' and 'Panda bear'.)

All in all, I think ZT2 is a far better game, and kinda regret this purchase.

I'm going to start off by saying that I really wanted to like this game. I read through all the reviews before making my purchase and even though there were negative ones, I decided I'd find out for myself exactly how horrible this game really is. Well, I've come to realize that it's not horrible, but it's not great either. It's just okay.

I have always loved zoo builders and for some reason there's a serious shortage of them out there, so Zoo Tycoon 1 and 2 is pretty much up against Wildlife Park 1, 2, and 3. I have played both the Zoo Tycoon games avidly and I hold it very dear to my heart, despite its discontinuation.

The Good-
1) I love the amount of animals, but also the amount of out-of-the-box type of animals that came with the DLCs. I liked the farm animals, the domestic animals, and the animals that are kind of used as "decoration" (Ducks, Butterflies, etc).
2) The graphics are nice.
3) I liked the animations of the people and animals.
4) Unique buildings that are animal themed like horse stables.

The Bad-
1) Graphics are buggy. When I started my game up, I instantly saw black squares in place of some plants. It went away when I zoomed in.
2) The camera. I always feel like I'm TOO zoomed in.
3) Placing water was crazy ridiculous. You need to dig into the ground then place a water pump and the water keeps filling to whatever level the pump was placed on. It's just too complicated and to be honest, quite annoying.
4) You can't build on a grid like other zoo games so your zoo ends up looking messy.
5) NO BIOMES. Nothing is organized into biomes so you have maybe 1 tree for your Savannah exhibits. The animals like land based on "Hardness" which is just.. weird.
6) Like I said, the menus are unorganized. You have to hunt for the things your animals want through each menu and if you forget you have to navigate all the way back to the animal (yep, re-scroll and everything) to read their requirements again. The animals aren't even organized. Nothing is organized.
7) No themed decorations. You get maybe 2 flowerbeds and 2 statues. So difficult to theme anything.
8) The weather. It might sound cool at first, having weather, but when it starts raining or snowing, suddenly EVERYONE and EVERYTHING is sad because they "Don't like the weather".
9) Every time you want to place staff, you have to place a bulky and unattractive building.
10) Buildings are nice looking, but seriously limited. Decorations are the same way (as stated above). For example, there are no restaurants. Want to feed your guests? Okay.. do they want to eat french fries and soda? Because those are some of your main options.

I want to add that Wildlife Park 3 is a much better game but I was attracted to the DLC packs for Wildlife Park 2. I'll wait until they make DLC for Wildlife Park 3 and continue to support this developer even though I was disappointed in this game. I love zoo builders THAT much and I think they're doing better and improving. I will still play my zoo on Wildlife Park 2, even though the bad things I listed get seriously aggravating.

Best "Zoo tycoon" genre based game in my opinion and I myself have played the Zoo tycoon series for at least 5 years but
unlike the zoo tycoon series Wildlife park 2 has better graphics, more flora and fauna, etc.

Graphics: 8.1/10
Animals variety: 9/10
flora variety: 7.9/10
User friendliness: 8.9/10