Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 (Windows)

ROLLERCOASTER TYCOON 3 gives youngsters and their parents the opportunity to design and manage the amusement park of their dreams. But the third installment in this popular franchise also lets kids ride the coasters they've created and enjoy all the fun of their virtual amusement parks up close and personal from the viewpoint of a visitor. Youngsters construct amusement parks in a graphically rich 3-D environment with multiple camera views, and customize the park guests. Once they've finished designing a park, kids can ride or participate in any of the coasters and attractions from a first-person perspective.

As with previous Tycoon installments, kids can play any of several challenging scenarios. For example, they might be asked to build a park on difficult terrain or one designed to attract lots of guests. Tycoon 3 also adds a new "SandBox" mode that gives kids unlimited funds to create the fantasy park of their dreams.

Parents, make sure your computer is powerful enough to run this game. It requires a PC with at least a 733-megahertz Pentium III processor and a 3-D video card, such as an ATI Radeon or NVIDIA GeForce 2 with at least 32 megabytes of video memory. Also, click update in the opening screen of the game to download the latest patches, which help to make the game play better and add bonus features.