Universal Studios Theme Parks Adventure captures the thrill of standing in line

destructoid.com:

You probably have some good memories of at least one bad game. I’ve got a few. One that stands out is when I rented Universal Studios Theme Parks Adventure. It was released one month after the GameCube. The GameCube had a pretty killer launch, but eventually, you run out of big titles to try out and decide to see what washed up in the gutter. So, I rented it, and my mother decided to try it out while I was at school. What followed was this short period where we would swap tips on how to get through the game.

I think it was just funny to see my mom just so put off by a game. I’m not saying she doesn’t have taste, but I think it was the first time I saw her struggling to grasp how such a terrible game could exist. I remember her giving me the tip, “You can get points from the Waterworld ride. It’s just a movie.”

That’s bonding, right there. Trading tips and utter bafflement with each other. And that’s the only reason I look back fondly on Universal Studios Theme Parks Adventure.

Roller Coaster Tycoon awakened a love of theme parks in me as a youth. As an adult, I recognize them as wonderous places full of marvels of engineering but horrifically infested by humans. Disney World may actually be the most magical place on earth, but people ruin everything and the place is constantly bursting with them.

Universal Studios Theme Parks Adventure captures exactly that. You’re placed in the Universal Studios Osaka theme park, and your guide is Woody Woodpecker. I don’t know if there has ever been a more irritating cartoon character than Woody Woodpecker. Bugs Bunny frustrated his foes, but you still rooted for him because you were in on his jokes and his antagonists were less tolerable than him. No one is less tolerable than Woody