Polygon 8/10
Videogamer 5/10Zoo Tycoon is repetitive and a little glitchy; it's simple and sometimes irritating. It's also a smartly designed simulator, accessible for all. It's charming and sweet, to the point that I never wanted to stop playing — even when my colleagues demanded we use the console for one of the bigger launch titles.
Forget them, I just want to see my next task. What can I do to make this zoo better, the visitors happier and the animals healthier? For a game with tycoon in the title, it's got a good heart.
Shacknews 7Maybe I’m not the target market for this and maybe I’m reading too much into the word 'Tycoon', but even looking past that I didn’t have a whole lot of fun. The Kinect interaction, while cute, is less so after repeated animations, and I’m not sure that Zoo Tycoon really knows what it wants to be.
In the end it felt a lot like playing Kinectimals, and that was almost three years ago.
However, the rest of us have some globe-trotting to do. These zoos aren't going to fix themselves, are they? Zoo Tycoon may have taken a best-of-both-worlds approach, but to my surprise and delight, ends up being more successful as a "game" than a mere family-friendly "experience."
Eurogamer Italy 8/10
Everyeye 7/10
OXM UK 7/10
Game Reactor 8/10For all its shallowness, I couldn't help but fall for Zoo Tycoon. While its charms may indeed be too quickly exhausted, they're potent while they last, and there's an overpowering wholesomeness that's difficult to resist. There are a lot of great ideas, wonderful moments and potential memories to be made here that make it more than worth a look, but much like my experiences with real-life animal parks, Zoo Tycoon becomes less likely to delight upon each subsequent visit.
Huffington Post 4/5Zoo Tycoon is very enjoyable. As a family game it excels thanks to gorgeous visuals, user-friendly interfaces, an abundance of interactive features and informative content. It's not a game for everyone, there are plenty of features but it's rarely a hefty challenge. It's a game to be enjoyed at a relaxed pace, an experience to celebrate and share because it's so refreshingly pleasant.
Metro 6/10Zoo Tycoon is not going to blow most gamers' minds, but it's hard not to like it. Alongside its core mechanics, which are fun and entertaining, it's a beautifully presented game with stunningly animated animals, and will appeal to a family audience more than any other launch title. In truth it feels like it might have been more at home on the Wii U - but that's not a criticism. The Xbox One would do well to encourage more games of this type - families will surely appreciate it - as well as titles of this overall quality. And we can't wait for the surely inevitable dinosaur DLC, so we can fire a hose at a T-Rex.
With 100 animals to pet and feed Zoo Tycoon is not ungenerous with its content but it is patronising in how little it expects of its players. The end result is a game that’s passing fun for animal-loving kids but which offers no long term entertainment for either them or their parents. And yet somehow we still can’t help wishing they’d make a sequel with dinosaurs.