Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Oct 4, 2021

  I could not really recommend this pack at first. The bugs and crashing with it and the update had me trying to play for about a week and then giving up entirely until the North American Animal Pack dropped today. I can definitely say it is fixed, though. I loaded up the exact same sandbox game that would stall and crash after a minute or two and it runs perfectly fine. The pack itself is fairly standard at this point. Cute animals; a selection of build pieces that you should look up to see if you want them; a timed scenario I wish was a career one instead; etc. I think the animals are adorable and the colorful build pieces appeal to me.
• swskydancer

  Jul 7, 2022

  This is high on my list of favorite packs, even with the really themed scenery pieces. The positive for the scenery is the ability to much more easily build a zoo with a really cohesive look to it. I've lost count of the number of hours that I have used the animal camera to "swim" with those absolutely adorable African Penguins. All of the animals chosen for inclusion with this pack are beloved by me. As always with a game's DLC, opinions can be diverse, but the Africa Pack gets a big thumbs up from me. :D
• gamedeal user

  Jun 22, 2021

  It Has Rhinos And Meerkats, Why Wouldent You.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 22, 2021

  MEERKATS. End of review.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 22, 2021

  As always, another great DLC to further flesh out a game full of stuff! Love it, keep it up Frontier! Would love an Aviary or Aquarium theme for the next one :D
• gamedeal user

  Jun 22, 2021

  MEERKATS!!!!, enough said <3
• gamedeal user

  Jun 22, 2021

  I don't think I've ever been so conflicted on how to review a pack before. To put it simply; to me this feels like an unfortunate step backwards from the past two packs, but at the same time I cannot deny that the community as a whole seems more engaged with this pack than the prior one. I personally find it quite lacking, but most players I have heard speaking of it seem satisfied. Prior to the aquatic pack, the community seemed united under the common grounds that these packs were majorly lacking in the animal department. Entire regions of the world would be represented with only four animals, and there was no idea if we might ever get more from those places. The aquatic pack, while still only having four animals, broke the formula with incredible new mechanics the game sorely needed, along with 3 heavily requested species, and so everyone seemed very happy with it. After that we got the SEA (South East Asia) pack, and at first the entire community seemed elated, we had finally been listened to! 7 animals instead of 4! Unfortunately, as time went on it seemed to unveil some unseen parts of the community. The community seems to be dominated by two major factions, those who focus more on having a wide variety of different animals, and those whose focus is on meticulous and creative building with monstrous piece counts and the most exquisite of detail. While even the latter type seemed to agree that 4 animals to a pack was far too few, they had never received a content pack with -nothing- for them. While the scenery packs are lacking in new animals, they still have a few. Most packs are going to have at least one animal that will excite the average player. But a pack with no scenery peices? To players who are more focused on hyper creative builds, it was a massive blow to their enjoyment and creativity, and it was felt throughout the community. I said in the review for the SEA pack that future packs should only be scenery packs if focusing on a new region (Like North America Native Peoples, or the Everglades for a rustic feel) and if treading on existing ground, it should be an animal pack. The best option would be the best of both worlds; 7 new animals and a wide variety of peices, to make both sides happy. Such packs could be priced higher to ensure frontier makes their money's worth, and since in such a large company it is unlikely that a character modeler is the same individual as a prop modeler, there shouldn't be any effect on the time to produce such a pack. The base game already had an African build set, so this seems an odd choice. So what do you get with this pack? You get a White Rhino, African Penguin, Meerkat, and Fennec Fox, and about 180 scenery peices. How do the animals preform? The Meerkat is the flagship of the pack and doubtless the reason most people will purchase it. It looks as you might expect, surprisingly small but there is no problem there. It does about what you would expect, including a burrowing feature where they can dig a hole, then use it to teleport to another existing hole in the enclosure. It's a cute little feature, but given the size of exhibits you will probably put these animals in I wouldn't expect to see it that often. What is a nice touch is the keepers actually remove the holes when they clean, meaning the meerkats get to make their holes all over again which increases the chance for you to see it and feels like a nice bit of enrichment. My only downside with them is that they dont seem to climb objects to purch on them. I also hope in future updates they have them interact more with each other, often in real zoos you see meerkats playing a lot, here they seem to ignore each other. The white rhino is the other big ticket animal, and while it is largely a solid choice I have to bring up it's absolutely bizzare 'trotting' animation, that looks like a show horse preforming some kind of dance. The legs kick up ridiculously high, and it has a very unusual look to it. Other than this, it's about what you might expect. I do wish they could have had a more realistic movement and when in large enclosures might run around instead of using the bizzare canter, but aside from this they are solid. The fennec fox is a bit of an odd one. It's the fourth canid we've gotten in a dlc, but ironically it's the only one the community seemed to want, and it's certainly the favorite by far. It's a fine addition, although personally I do wonder if there might have been better choices out there given we probably aren't getting an african animal pack. Once again the animal has a bizzare trotting animation, where the legs move much faster than the actual animal is moving. This would probably be a very easy fix and I wouldn't be surprised if it gets patched sometime in the following weeks. Most of the packs have the 'Odd-man out', the animal that either doesn't fit the theme or was by a huge margin the least popular. The African Penguin might be the first animal that is a bit of both. Penguins were one of the most highly requested animals, and we got a King Penguin in the aquatic pack. I wasn't expecting another one, but how does it stack up? For a start, it's definitely the odd man out, an ocean going animal in a pack themed around the desert. It's also the one that feels the most like it should have been another animal, as I went to putting it in a zoo I found myself wondering why I would end up using it over the King Penguin. It's a bit smaller, but it notably swims much slower. I think my best experience with a DLC was getting the aquatic pack and seeing penguins jet through the water at incredible pace in a flock, seeing it here but with slower penguins didn't really hit me in the same way. They aren't a bad animal by any means but they feel way too similar with the King Penguin; unlike another animal from the same pack. The White Rhino feels distinct enough from the Indian Rhino that there are reasons I might pick one or the other, or might even have both in the same zoo. But these penguins just feel like a watered down version of the one's from another pack. If you wanted more penguins, you probably won't be disappointed, but I find myself still hankering for a few african favorites that we will probably never see. What about the scenery pieces? While I admit to not being as much of a hyper builder, I still enjoy the tools in the game and try to make nice looking builds. This pack has definitely got me thinking about how much I use pieces from various packs; Arctic Pack pieces are surprisingly versatile, but I more often than not use them as placeholders for other pieces. South American pieces look very nice, but I find I don't actually use them very often. Australian pieces I use in almost every zoo, they are fantastic. Aquatic pack pieces are the same. From what I have played around with, I find these pieces to be by far the least interesting. There isn’t a single one that immediately jumps out and either makes me want to build something with it or seems like a new default piece the way things from Aus or Aquatic do. In short, if you are a builder player who wants new pieces, this might be for you, but I don’t think it delivers as well as past packs have. If you are a player who focuses on animals, you might have to wait for modding to return to get your animal fix. While this pack largely feels like a failure to me on both pieces and animals, I cannot deny the community upsurge due to its presence and I hope as time goes on both the builds done with the pieces and the animals present can get better and better. tl;dr Nice animals with a few odd animations, still on the 4 animals a scenery pack system which is unfortunate. I'm happy that the builder players got new peices but none of the ones in this pack jump out. I don't think this is a bad pack and it lacks the major flaws that Australia did, but this is definitely not the best either. If you already love the game, go for it.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 22, 2021

  My Favourite Pack so far!!!
• gamedeal user

  Jun 22, 2021

  Meerkats are the best because they have new animations. I highly recommend this DLC, but still hope to get Birds and Fish in the DLC
• gamedeal user

  Jun 22, 2021

  This pack is absolutely amazing. All the animals are beutifuly done, with alot of new animations and awesome enrichment options. We got the Meerkat, which is just a zoo stample and the game could not be complete without it, we got an African Penguin, which is fianally a hot climate alternative and more commonly kept penguin in zoos, next is the Fennec Fox, finally our first fox species! And a White Rhino, a must needed African icon. It should also be noted that 3 of these animals are small and only need a small enclosure, which is absolutely awesome to finally have in PZ. You cannot build a realistic zoo just with the big animals, you also need these small "filler" ones. Some of the building pieces are probably too themed for my liking, but others are very versatile, AND there are mesh pieces with the free update! Foliage in this pack is absolutely top notch, many beautiful palm trees and other desert/savanah plants and trees. Overall a great pack. Hopefully next one is an animal pack though. :P