A bit of a letdown...
This is an okay game, but definitely a letdown...

I bought this a few weeks before Christmas 2007 and was really excited. It turned out to be a bit bland though. The "Whoa" pieces look cool but move slowly and make you wish the ride would get a move on. It also isn't very "whoa" when it won't allow you to use these pieces more than half the time (you have to be straight to use this one, or you must be on a downhill slant, etc.) making most coasters slow, boring, and pointless. Altering paint colors and designs take so much time you end up not caring, leaving all of the coasters defaulted. The building tools are easy to use once you figure them out and go smoothly, however, it may strain your wrist as you try to bend the track all the way vertical. ; ) I noticed that learning how to build wasn't a piece of cake for everyone, so you may find yourself struggling. The overall building and designing of coasters, along with riding gets a mere 2/5 stars. Though it may be fun the first few times, it easily gets boring and you'll find it hard to make your coasters gain speed or do "tricks".

The story mode is alright for the first park or so and then soon tires as well. You focus more on challenging others, flirting, collecting, or clearing space for premades than you do actually designing and making money. The story lines are a bit ridiculous as they involve brainwashing robots, etc that barely keep you involved. You can easily win in one day. You don't generally have the choice over what mini game you play during a challenge or task, meaning that if your stuck, your stuck! You won't be able to get a new park and move on until you complete that little mini game with a high enough score. Overall, the story mode is quite disappointing. It does not allow much free roam at all as you are constantly doing things to win. You must build the coasters your uncle or reporter tells you too or face failure. However, that means even when you're done with the game and come back to your park to tweak, the customers will still be unhappy if you remove one of the task coasters. This leaves no room for freedom in creating coasters that people can actually ride as there are only about six allowable per park. Overall the story line gets a 1/5 rating.

The mini games themselves are disappointing as well. There are about 50 in total including two unlockables but only about 5 are even worth playing. I recommend Bandito Chinchilla, Saucer Soccer, Saucer Sumo, and Stunt Rider. These games are the most involved and fun to play. The rest have incredibly simple concepts and are extremely boring or poorly done. The multiplayer is fun for a while but also quickly is tired of, making it a game to skip for parties.

I also had a problem with the game where it would just shut off the wii out of nowhere, losing all unsaved progress and possibly harming the wii. We had to unplug the system and restart it. This happened three times, each time with this game and this game only. If you are going to get this, FREQUENTLY SAVE YOUR PROGRESS!

I would not recommend this game unless you are more into the flirting and challenging mini game aspect. I warn you though that there is limited, repeating dialogue and you'll probably find yourself skipping most of it anyway. If you are looking for a coaster building and riding experience I warn you to stray away from this game. Good luck with your decision and I hope this helped!

A fun game, but still needs more
Thrillville Off The Rails is a lot of fun, if you're about 10 I guess.

It's not a bad game, but I have some issues with it.

1- You only have 5 parks you can build. That's it!
2- The coaster creator is kind of annoying. It's not as realistic as say Roller Coaster Tycoon or others.
3- Some of the mini-games explanations leave a lot to be desired. It took me forever to figure out a few of them. I'd hate to be 10 and try to figure them out.
4- If the robots are bad, why the heck does Mortamer have one as his assistant? lol
5- The parks aren't big enough. You don't really have enough room to build a realistic sized coaster.

Overall this is a fun game, the mini games are about worth the price of the disc as well. Many of them are throwbacks to the classic 80s arcade games I love.

Pretty Good......but it's no Carnival Games
So I just got this game for my Wii and it's.........pretty good. In one mode you run around your theme park trying out and placing rides and booths and games and such which is half fun and half "what am I doing?" Previous reviews mentioned how realistic the coasters were, which they are, but they didn't mention that they were mostly 30 seconds in length, as were all the rides. Kinda short given that this is billed as a coaster game.

In party mode you can indeed forgo the running around the park and just pick a mini game to play, which is nice. As other reviewers said: some games were good and some were "these controls don't really work." The shear number of mini games is impressive but doesn't make this more of a coaster/carnival ride game.

It is fun to customize the color schemes on the rides in your park and the dialogue with the patrons is indeed clunky, as another reviewer said. The soundtrack is very much geared towards the music tastes of pre-teens which, as a dad in his thirties, I found un-cool. I guess I'm just not all that into Avril Lavine & friends.

All in all, this game is okay but if you want a game who's sole purpose is carnival type games then buy Carnival Games for your Wii. If you're looking for a coaster game that will blow your mind, you'll have keep waiting until they release something truly amazing. I'm hopeful.

bang for the buck
we love the mini games, but the rollercoaster & park simulation is difficult to understand, takes time to develop & even us, dads, don't have now the patience for this. for $30., it's worth it.

Something for everyone
Wow, this game is packed with stuff to do. Something for everyone. Mom enjoyed the mission challenges in 5 categories: build, games, guests, upkeep, and manage. Dad liked the classic-style arcade games. Seven year old liked exploring the many parks and solving the sabotage mysteries. Five year old loved to build coasters, golf courses, and buggy courses. The music (including Miley Cyrus and Aly and AJ) and the DJ background is pretty hip. The dance/cheerleeding game is terrible, but the shooting/treasure hunting games are fun. Pick your park manager character, dress, customize, then go design your amusement park, meet the many customers, and play the 34 multiple minigames. A really good buy if you like variety.