Atari is here to help you relive your childhood dreams with 'Roller Coaster Tycoon Classic'

Christmas and Hanukkah came early.
 By 
Karissa Bell
 on 
Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Atari just delivered an early Christmas present.

The company has released a new set of Roller Coaster Tycoon apps for iOS and Android that bring a heavy dose of '90s nostalgia.

Officially called Roller Coaster Tycoon Classic, the $5.99 game looks to be a near perfect copy of the original PC game that was first released in 1999. Seriously. The game is pixelated as hell and the design has barely been updated for touch screens.

That's a good thing, though. Atari previously released Roller Coaster Tycoon 4, a more modern free-to-play version of the game and it just wasn't the same.

Atari is now correcting that with the new "classic" version of the game, which it created with Chris Sawyer, who created the first games in the 90's. The new app brings back the original parks, rides and sound effects from both the Roller Coaster Tycoon and Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 PC games -- in all their pixelated glory.

Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

In total, the game has 95 different parks you can unlock and play through, along with a couple expansion packs which are available via separate in-app purchases.

Gameplay is just like the original, with you taking control of managing a theme park by clearing land, building rides, hiring staff and working to keep guests happy and reach profit goals. Playing is somewhat hampered by the app's navigation, which won't be very intuitive if you never played the original.

Sure, $5.99 (plus more if you buy the expansion packs) may seem like a steep price to pay for a bit of 90's game nostalgia, but it will be well worth it to those who spent hours and hours playing the original. Better still, unlike another recent 90's favorite reborn on mobile, it doesn't require a data connection to play.

Topics Gaming

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Karissa Bell

Karissa was Mashable's Senior Tech Reporter, and is based in San Francisco. She covers social media platforms, Silicon Valley, and the many ways technology is changing our lives. Her work has also appeared in Wired, Macworld, Popular Mechanics, and The Wirecutter. In her free time, she enjoys snowboarding and watching too many cat videos on Instagram. Follow her on Twitter @karissabe.

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