i played zoo tycoon as a kid and i picked up this game thinking it would scratch that itch. it did, and consumed my life to boot. i played more than 40 hours of this game in two weeks. maybe not a lot for some, but for me it's uncharacteristic for one game to consume me so.

towards the end of this game's runtime (around 30 hours or so for most, it seems) this game becomes a pretty extreme drag. it becomes a chore to find the last variants of animals to trade for the last species you need. at one point i completely stopped caring about my zoo rating while i single-mindedly focused exclusively on breeding, so i could "finish" this game.

with it becoming such a chore to finish, you might think i'd rate this game poorly. just the opposite; i still love this game (part of why i was so intent on finishing it was so i didn't come to resent it), and i'm excited to play the aquarium and dinosaur dlc! ...after a long break, of course.