RollerCoaster Tycoon

Roller Coaster Tycoon is likely not a game you will play in 2022.

Not because its bad - its quite excellent. Its a game of simple but compelling management mixed with a simple but compelling creative sandbox, a game where you resolve the conflicts between your gameplay objectives, your creative ambition, and your finances. Its gorgeous sprite work and iconic sound effects hold up to this day, as do its 21 campaign scenarios.

No, the reason you won't play RCT1 in the current year is because it has been supplanted by both official and unofficial successors. RCT2 released in 2002 as a greatly improved version of RCT1's engine, with much better tools as a sandbox. RCT Classic is a modern version with both RCT1 and RCT2's scenarios available. And if you're a more hardcore fan you'll gravitate towards OpenRCT2, a fan-made recreation of RCT2 with an abundance of technical improvements and optional new features. RCT1 is well and truly eclipsed.

So this 5/5 rating for RCT is not necessarily a rating for the game itself as it exists today. Its a rating for the mechanical basis that its successors built upon, for the art assets which are still used to this day, and for its excellent scenarios which you can and absolutely should play in OpenRCT2. These scenarios feature a variety of challenges and a great difficultly curve, and are miles better than the scenarios from RCT2.

this game was written in assembly language which is apparently a painstakingly tedious process

but yeah, just play RCT2