Thrillville: Off the Rails has now hit the handheld and console markets and offers something a little different from your usual FPS or racing games, but does this game offer a fun rollercoaster of a ride or does it feel like a cheap arcade you wish you had never wandered into in the first place? Read on.

The game sees you take the role of a Theme Park manager (who you can customize to your liking) who must manage five different amusement parks, all of which are unlocked as you progress, each park has three different areas with it’s own theme and in each area you also have open spaces which you can customize by adding new rides, food and drink stands or other attractions, you are helped on your way by a scientist call Uncle Mortimer, who while unstable is usually quite helpful.

The main tasks that you are given is to decide what rides and other attractions should be built and how much they should cost, you are also responsible for the hiring and training of staff as well as arranging marketing campaigns. To give you a general idea of how your public are enjoying the park you can interact with them, asking them how they feel and what their needs are, in fact you can even flirt with your guests and if you do this well enough you will even unlock a mini game.

One of the most fun parts of the game is the ability to build rollercoaster’s, you can build some pretty insane looking rides using this option, it is fairly easy too, all you need to do is join together each piece of track until you have the desired effect, using this option we created some pretty bizarre looking coasters including one with at least 15 loops. As if that wasn’t fun enough, you can even test your ride once it’s finished, there are also numerous camera angles for you to use to enable you to get the best view.

The most fun you will get from Thrillville: Off the rails is the mini games, these take the form of stalls which you can enter and then play, they really are incredible fun, one of our favourite mini games is Bandito Chinchilla, in this game (which feels a bit like a cartoon version of Street of Rage) you take the role of Bandito the Chinchilla and your task is to work your way through the various levels fighting all sorts of enemies from El Lizardo to El Toado to save his sister who has been kidnapped, the game ends in a boxing match with the main boss and is just simple brilliant fun throughout. Another of the mini games which is great fun is Stunt Rider, this is a 2D side scroller in which you lean forward and backward to keep your rider on the bike, these are just two of a wide selection of mini games which range from top down shooters to puzzlers, there really is a great choice for everyone.

The other great thing about the mini games is that party play has been included for these, meaning that you can play along with you friends, this makes them even more fun, especially in games such as Tank frenzy where playing against friends makes the game ten times better. Unfortunately the multiplayer mode is diminished slightly on the PSP version due to it only supporting Ad-Hoc mode.

If there is one problem with Thrillville: Off the rails it is that after a while it gets quite repetitive, while playing the minigames (especially with friends) is fun, the managing of the park gets a bit tedious after a while, this is due to you being limited to where you can build the attractions on each site, perhaps a bit more freedom in this respect would have been better.

Graphically Thrillville: Off the rails doesn’t really push any of the systems it appears on, the PS2 and PSP versions are almost identical, although there are a few more noticeable issues in the PSP version, the game certainly is charming enough though in it’s presentation, it’s just that it could possibly have been done a little better.

Overall Thrillville: Off the rails is a fun game, if not a little repetitive, as mentioned the most fun you will have is when playing the minigames, especially if your friends are around. While this game may not be for everyone if you like management sims and classic minigames then you can’t go wrong with Thrillville.