The time has come – to throw all seriousness out the window and use the U6 for some games. First up, and this is purely for experimental reasons – Rollercoaster Tycoon 3!
For those who are unaware, this is a game based around the player successfully ‘running’ their own theme parks – building the rides and hiring the staff.
Initially it took about 4 and a half minutes from inserting the disk to full installation – impressive: my PC took more than twice as long.
However, on clicking the ‘play’ option a window appeared to say: Runtime error ‘abnormal program termination’. So I try the shortcut it has just placed on my desktop, same result.
I decided to take a look into the Atari folder in the Start menu and see ‘Check for updates’ highlighted – shrugging my shoulders I click it.
A minute later it tells me it’s been updated. At this point I was quite sceptical, but on choosing the game from the Start menu it loaded almost instantly – the shortcut on my desktop still didn’t work however.
I chose the first of the scenarios and began to play, it took a little getting used to but I soon found the screen of the U6 to be plenty big enough to show off the graphics of the game. And with the newly restored sound it was easy to get into the game.
I decided to build a rollercoaster in my new park but found the touchpad to be a bit awkward in the creative process. It’s hard to get a sense of ‘flow’ out of it although it’s not impossible to play so I decided to break out the ‘bamboo’ mouse (it’s bamboo-look plastic) I received with the laptop.
I saved my game, exited the game screen and put the computer in hibernation while I went to get it. Coming back to the computer I switched back on and clicked on the game via the start menu as last time. “Runtime error ‘abnormal program termination’”- here we go again! I updated again, still no luck.
Looks like I’m going to need drastic measures, I uninstalled the game, reinstalled – same message. I uninstalled, reinstalled, updated – same message.
Searching online, it became apparent I have a knack for creating the exact same problem as many other people – following on from the sound dilemma last time! Only this time there doesn’t seem to be an answer just yet…
To be continued…
