RollerCoaster Tycoon 3

A third iteration of the RollerCoaster Tycoon series, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, was released in November 2004. It lets people play in 3D, which allows for the riding of one's own creations (something people had been calling for since the first game), full lighting effects and day-night cycles, creation of fireworks displays, and the use of custom music tracks for in-game sound and music on rides. Also, the much desired sandbox mode was added to the game.

Although Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 is based primarily on the previous two games, Chris Sawyer himself was only involved at a 'consulting' level and was not one of the programmers. His touch is still apparent, however, through the amazing replayability of the game. A patch is available on a number of sites that fixes the inordinate number of bugs found in the first release (some reviewers, such as PC Gamer, have gone as far as to call the intial release a beta, similar to the intial release of Mac OS X).

This game was developed by Frontier Developments.

Expansions

Soaked!

Soaked! is the first expansion pack for RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, set to be released in June 2005. It will feature new rides and attractions as well as water-themed parks. New features will include swimming pools, flumes, fountains, diving boards, hot tubs, showers and lounge chairs. To make the game even more realistic there will be water shows with dolphins and killer whales (just like SeaWorld). Overall, there will be 50 new rides, including White Water Rapids and Giant Flume. 'Peeps' will have a whole new behaviour in the swimming pools as well as new behaviour on a few new rides.

There is a related article on Wikipedia called RollerCoaster Tycoon which you may find useful.