Zoo Tycoon 2 has a release date of early 2008 for Nintendo DS. The Microsoft title is coming via THQ and developer Altron.
Animal lovers will be happy to know that the game isn’t a direct port, but has been enhanced to take advantage of the DS’ capabilities, just like 2005’s port of the first Zoo Tycoon, which sold over 500,000 copies on DS, convincing THQ that it could do well to release Microsoft’s sequel on Nintendo’s handheld.
Zoo Tycoon 2 on DS offers both designer and director modes, as well as a new zookeeper mode, where animals can be tended to in a 3D environment. The game has a wide variety of animals from every continent, and the DS version will also be adding new animals and new environments to beef up the game some. If each player has a copy of the game they can also share their zoo data with other players.
Zoo Tycoon 2 joins the original Zoo Tycoon and a number of other DS title that are Microsoft properties, including Age of Empires: Age of Kings and a Viva Pinata DS game which is also in the works. This is due to the fact that Microsoft does not have a portable system of it’s own, so hey, why not make money of your rival’s handheld machine?