Name: Thrillville: Off the Raids
Genre: Building Simulation
Platforms: Nintendo DS, Wii, Xbox 360, PSP, Playstation 2, PC (Reviewed on Nintendo DS)

The best way to describe playing Thrillville: Off the Rails is to be reminded of a trip to a carnival. While you may drive past it and catch a glimpse of the structures being put together and it could seem really cool as you first arrive, the truth is that drunken convicts are operating all of the rides and the whole park smells like vomit. While the game doesn’t smell quite like vomit (despite what I would describe as a valiant attempt) it comes off as shoddy, underdeveloped, and disappointing.

Thrillville: Off the Rails doesn’t appease any of the fans it ropes in with promises of a theme park game. Rides range from either fun and interesting or stupid and boring. I imagine it would be fun to watch through my characters eyes as they enjoy the teacups or a small slingshot ride. I say that I imagine because apparently the developers and I didn’t see eye to eye on this, as instead of seeing the rides through my characters perspective I just see them riding them. In some cases they just means seeing my ugly, short avatar enter a ride and watching it spin for thirty seconds.

Controls are also a fault, relying on the touch screen in a poor way when the option of using buttons would have been appreciated. They are mostly used for the minigames which I are fairly realistic. I scored on myself within ten seconds of playing air hockey – so it can’t be too far off.

The game is not a graphical masterpiece, bringing some of the fugliest characters in the history of gaming to the DS. They look like the Sims from Mysims if they had eaten too much cotton candy and never grown past three foot tall. They are short, wide, and just plain creepy. It is made even weirder when the game shows cheerleaders that look just as awkward as the rest of the characters in the game. One of my first actions in the game was to change my mascot from a cheerleader to a parrot – the parrot was much, much sexier.

Thrillville: Off the Rails for the Nintendo DS wears many different hats. Sadly, some of the hats don’t fit and the ones that do are the novelty hats you buy at a carnival that only look good when you’re a little tipsy. It is like the developers made a few different games. One where you can explore a theme park and ride the rides, one where you can build a theme park and control the finances, and one where you play theme park inspired minigames. They made these three games, realized that they wouldn’t fit onto a handheld, and took a third of each and shoved it onto the shelves. Each portion is half-baked and the game comes off as more of a corn dog then a funnel cake.