Just in time for the hottest days of summer, Soaked! gives Tycooners plenty of tools to cool off the peeps enjoying their parks, even if they themselves are sweating in their desk chair.

Yay, Rollercoaster Tycoon 3’s first expansion is here! Soaked! adds tons of new features to the already fun Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, and if your drive to play RCT3 is dried up by now Soaked! should coax it off the deep end and provide hours of additional entertainment.

When I first heard word of RCT3’s first expansion being based around swimming pools and such, I have to say I was a bit worried. I thought it sounded too specific and was afraid there wouldn’t be enough content to drive a full expansion pack. Well, let me tell you that it isn’t just about swimming pools (even though those are a blast to create) and there are plenty of things to play with.

One feature I was very excited to come across was the addition of tunnels. Fans of the previous RCT games probably noticed right away that they couldn’t create tunnels for their rides or pathways in RCT3. Soaked! brings back the tunnels, and even makes them more believable by adding underground lights and tunnel entrances. Also, for players that enjoy placing rides and scenery at different elevations, a sort of “position copy” feature was added. Now, say you place a raised piece of scenery and want to place another one nearby at the same height. If you press and hold control while the cursor is on the previous item you’ll notice the current object jumps to that same height. It’s pretty useful when you want objects at the same height but can’t quite tell how high that is for manual placement.

The biggest draw for this expansion is the ability to create swimming pools. Pools are extremely easy to make; it’s a lot like making a pathway. There is no need to dig out the ground; all you do is drag the pool tool across the ground where you want it. There are a few different setups for the shapes of the pools, so you can choose whether the pool has sharp edges, smooth edges, and a couple settings in between. After the basic shape is created you can then add tile, which is like the pool’s walkways. You can create islands by placing tile blocks in the middle of the water, or just widen the edges for placement of pool extras. Once you’re happy with your pool area, add a couple changing rooms and open it to the public. At this point all you have is a basic, empty pool, so now you can have fun making it your own.

Soaked! added pool extras to spice up your peeps’ swimming experience. You can place diving boards, ladders, and underwater lights anywhere along the pool’s edge. On the tile surrounding the pool you can place showers, lamps, lounging chairs, hot tubs, and life guards. If you want, you can even add a wave machine to your pool. Aside from all these cosmetic upgrades, pools are a great opportunity to add some cool rides to your park. Namely: water slides.

There are a pretty good amount of water slides available, ranging from body slides to ones that require a raft or inner tube. One of my favorite is the slide that ends with a giant bowl-shaped piece that sort of “flushes” the peeps back into the pool like a toilet. Slides are meant to go with pools, and after building one you must link it to a pool. This is sort of like adding an entrance and exit to a regular ride – you instead build a path from the edge of the pool that leads to the beginning of the slide.

There are a number of new booths to compliment pools now as well, including a booth for purchasing sunglasses, sun screen, swim suits, and even inflatable pool toys. Peeps will wear newly purchased sunglasses around the park, and you can even see owners of the inflatable toys play with them in the pool.

While pools seem to be the main focus of the expansion pack, they’re just a fraction of what is included. A neat new ride that was a hit in my park is the killer whale and dolphin shows. Place the stadium on a body of water large enough and open up the mix master (the layout for designing fireworks in RCT3) to set up your whale show. Here you place what tricks you want to perform and in what order. After it’s all laid out, open the stadium and watch the peeps pile in.

The mix master can do more than just fireworks and whale shows now, too. Laser light shows and water jets have been added. Fully customizable using preset patterns and your own creations, laser and water shows are really cool to build and witness. These shows can be worked into whale shows or fireworks displays, or secluded and on their own schedule. And don’t worry if you’re out of practice with the mix master (or never used it) as it’s very easy to learn. The built-in tutorial for creating laser shows explains everything very well.

One of my favorite things to create in Soaked! are the aquariums. You can now have a glass tunnel underwater, and with all the new underwater scenery you can create some interesting displays for your peeps to see.

You can also build water-based transportation rides now. So if your park is mainly water you don’t have to have trams and trains on bridges everywhere. Build two docks, link them, and now you have boats that constantly ferry your peeps across the park by water.

Waterfalls can also be built now, but are a little hard to create unless you plan for it. Unfortunately you can’t just build a lake on a hill above another lake and have a waterfall; the game requires specific landscaping to create a waterfall. The only way I was able to pull them off was if I built a perfectly square body of water and raised it above another square body of water. Not exactly a natural-looking waterfall, but they still end up looking pretty cool anyway.

These are all the major things you see in Soaked! – there are many more pieces of scenery added into RCT3 with this expansion. Not only are there three new scenery categories, but there are even new things snuck into the existing categories. I played this expansion for days and kept finding new things here and there. Some of my favorite additions include vents in the ground that can emit smoke, fire, or mist, water cannons along the pathways for peeps to soak other park-goers, elevators as another means of getting peeps to higher ground, speakers that can be placed anywhere in the park for your mp3-listening pleasure wherever you go, and passport machines that reward your peeps for exploring your park with a free souvenir.

Soaked! adds loads of scenery and ride possibilities to an already expansive game. I was surprised at how much scenery I was finding as I played more and more, and it was all so good I wanted an excuse to add it all to my park. I personally loved RCT3 in the first place, but I think anyone who enjoys the style of gameplay the Rollercoaster Tycoon series offers would love what Soaked! brings to RCT3.

Gameplay: 8.5
Gameplay isn’t changed much at all – it’s still very easy to navigate the park and add scenery, rides, and pathways. With the revival of tunnels it’s now even easier to build wherever you want.

Graphics: 8.9 
The lighting effects, scenery, and water all look beautiful. The peeps still look silly, but that’s how they’re supposed to look.

Sound: 9.0
Sound additions included in Soaked! are primarily rushing water and splashes. Other than that it sounds just like vanilla RCT3, which sounded great in the first place.

Difficulty: Easy/Hard
Believe it or not, but the campaigns in RCT3 are pretty tough. You have to watch your money, keep your park running well, and constantly change things to keep the peeps interested. However, sandbox mode is offered right away and allows for infinite spending to create your dream park.

Concept: 7.8 
I still think they could have added more stuff using a different theme, but Soaked! is perfect for summer time and offers more than I expected it to.

Overall: 8.5
I think Soaked! does exactly what an expansion needs to and then some. Not only did they add a bunch of new content, rides, scenery, and events, but they even added completely new features (like the tunnels, elevators, laser shows, etc.). If you own RCT3 you should pick this expansion up whether you’re sick of the game or still going strong. Soaked! adds plenty of features to lengthen the life of your Rollercoaster Tycooning.