Jurassic World Evolution

I'm a big fan of prehistory and dinosaurs. I loved sinking about 15 straight hours into this game to build new enclosures and manage my dinosaurs. But then what? Just maintain your buildings with task after task trying to grow bigger and bigger until you cap out your map. Do that, say you beat the game, then you don't have to play it again.

I probably have seen Jurassic Park 3 more then anyone else as my young self was obsessed with the Spinosaurus. This game rejuvenated that part of me that loves dinosaurs so much which I probably haven't felt in over a decade. There's not too much to say about this game though honestly. It's a park builder with dinosaurs. Everything surrounding the dinosaurs is a blast, seeing how they interact, a variety of unique killing animations, and some hilarious behavior (a storm once caused my velociraptor cage to be able to enter a herbivore cage and they hid in the forest killing my dinosaurs). There's a large number of factors to consider when taking care of them, and their models are sometimes just nice to look at (that's my partner's favorite part of this game). The love for the dinosaurs is clear in how each one moves, sounds, and looks.

Unfortunately, the park building itself is not on the same tier. Managing guests is fairly boring and sometimes feels inconsistent (why is this restaurant right next to a hotel and t. rex pen not getting any attention?), and I wish it played both a bigger and more in-depth role. This is made worse by the fact that reconstructing the park is a pain and detrimental to your park making money. The way the game give's challenges too can be repetitive once you're a few islands in, and not every mission is in anyway fun (especially by the end). Some of these missions are great though, although I'd say it's a 50/50 split.

Managing your resources is a fun puzzle in itself, although again I wish it had a bit more depth. I do like how the co-workers you do missions for can sabotage you if you're not caring about them.

A few things that could be tweaked. The stat for how many dinos one can live with should scale based on how large the enclosure is. Dinos comfort should go back to 100 after being tranquilized as they just aggro again instantly even if you give them right conditions. Abusing the fossil center for money on another island and then bringing over the fossils is an easy and repeatable exploit. Placing buildings is a pain due to the terrain and most of the time this is not intended. Monorail and tour tracks are painful to construct.

I'll briefly mention each DLC as well. Dr. Wu's DLC adds some cool dino combos and they are freaks of nature. The island the DLC is on is a bit of a mess, but otherwise alright. Claire's Sanctury is a blast until you go to the sanctuary and then it's just an unimaginative island with a cool new mechanic. Return to Jurassic Park is a fun reimaging and a breath of fresh air both mission and building wise to the new enclosures. There's also a challenge mode but I felt too burnt out of playing the game to try it so unless someone tells me it's really good I'm not touching it anytime soon.

Although I railed on this game quite a bit, I did put 60 hours into it in just a few weeks. This game is a blast, the love of dinosaurs is here, and even if some of the mechanics could have more depth they are still enjoyable to play with. While the game obviously misses the point of Jurassic Park (critique of people doing anything for capital, even if it endangers others), if you like dinos and park building you'll probably have fun here.

Building a park and keeping dinosaurs is certainly fun. However, the park design and management options are ultimately rather shallow, and the game systems for generating new genomes is simply busy work.