RollerCoaster Tycoon Classic has been on mobile and Steam for many years, and it’s finally coming to Nintendo Switch this December, Atari announced Thursday. It’s available for preorder now on the eShop for $25.
Classic is actually a remastered bundle of the first two RollerCoaster Tycoon games and the three expansion packs: Toolkit, Wacky Worlds, and Time Twister, created by Chris Sawyer. The first debuted in 1999, and it set the standard for some of our favorite management sims. The series has staying power, too, although a lot of the recent entries have all been on mobile, especially for iOS. Atari released RollerCoaster Tycoon Classic, which was made in conjunction with Sawyer, for iOS and Android in 2016, and on Steam in 2017. And by all accounts, despite its age, Classic is absolutely worth the time.
The Switch has other RollerCoaster Tycoon games — RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 Complete Edition and RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures Deluxe — but this is the first time these original, highly influential games are on the Nintendo Switch. It’s good timing too because this year is the 25th anniversary of the first title’s release. It’ll be out on December 5.
“Fans of RollerCoaster Tycoon Classic have been hoping for a Switch version, and we are excited to bring it to the platform, Ethan Stearns, Atari vice president of games publishing, said in a press release. “Bringing RollerCoaster Tycoon Classic to the Switch, with its massive install base, is an opportunity to reengage lapsed players, provide active players with another great hardware platform, and reach a new generation of players who will now discover the franchise on the Switch.”
Atari, which has been publishing the series since the third entry, worked with Graphite Lab on the port, specifically taking the mouse and keyboard controls and have them work on controller.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.